Comparative Study of Web 1.0, Web 2.0 and Web 3.0

Abstract

The WWW is more and more used for application to application communication. The programmatic interfaces made available are referred to as web services. Most people today can hardly conceive of life without the internet. The web of documents has morphed into a web of data. The semantic wave embraces three stages of internet growth. The first stage, web 1.0, was about connecting information and getting on the net. Web 2.0 is about connecting people putting the "I" in user interface, and the "we" into a web of social participation. The next stage, web 3.0, is starting now. It is about representing meanings, connecting knowledge, and putting them to work in ways that make our experience of internet more relevant, useful, and enjoyable.

Full text

Comparative Study of Web 1.0, Web 2.0 and Web 3.0
UMESHA NAIK
Lecturer
Department of Library and Information Science
Mangalore University
Mangalagangothri 574 199
umeshai@yahoo.com
Dr. D. SHIVALINGAIAH
Professor
Department of Library and Information Science
Mangalore University
Mangalagangothri 574 199
d_shivaling@yahoo.com
Keywords
WWW, Web 1.0, Web 2.0, Web 3.0, Web services, Web technology, Web Application
Abstract
The WWW is more and more used for application to application communication. The
programmatic interfaces made available are referred to as web services. Most people today can
hardly conceive of life without the internet. The web of documents has morphed into a web of
data. The semantic wave embraces three stages of internet growth. The first stage, web 1.0, was
about connecting information and getting on the net. Web 2.0 is about connecting people putting
the "I" in user interface, and the "we" into a web of social participation. The next stage, web 3.0,
is starting now. It is about representing meanings, connecting knowledge, and putting them to
work in ways that make our experience of internet more relevant, useful, and enjoyable.
1. Introduction
A web service is a software system designed to support computer-to-computer interaction over
the Internet. Web services are not new and usually take the form of an Application Programming
Interface (API). In today's world of extreme competition on the business front, information
exchange and efficient communication is the need of the day. The web is an increasingly
important resource in many aspects of life: education, employment, government, commerce,
health care, recreation, and more. The web is a system of interlinked, hypertext documents

accessed via the Internet. With a web browser, a user views web pages that may contain text,
images, videos, other multimedia and navigates between them using hyperlinks.
The web was created in 1989 by Sir Tim Berners-Lee, working at CERN (The European
Organization for Nuclear Research) in Geneva, Switzerland. Since then, Berners-Lee has played
an active role in guiding the development of web standards (such as the markup languages in
which web pages are composed), in recent years has advocated his vision of a Semantic web.
[2]
Web 1.0 was the era when people could think that Netscape was the contender for the computer
industry crown. Web 2.0 is the era when people have come to realize that it's not the software
that enables the web that matters so much as the services that are delivered over the web. New
technologies will make online search more intelligent and may even lead to a web 3.0. Enter web
2.0, a vision of the web in which information is broken up into “microcontent” units that can be
distributed over dozens of domains. The web of documents has morphed into a web of data.
2. Web 1.0
In web 1.0, a small number of writers created web pages for a large number of readers. As a
result, people could get information by going directly to the source. The WWW or Web 1.0 is a
system of interlinked, hypertext documents accessed via the Internet.
WWW or Web 1.0
The first implementation of the web represents the web 1.0, which, according to Berners-Lee,
could be considered the "read-only web." In other words, the early web allowed us to search for
information and read it. There was very little in the way of user interaction or content
contribution. However, this is exactly what most website owners wanted: Their goal for a
website was to establish an online presence and make their information available to anyone at
any time.
[9]

3. Web 2.0
Currently, we are seeing the infancy of the Web 2.0, or the "read-write" web if we stick to
Berners-Lee's method of describing it. The newly-introduced ability to contribute content and
interact with other web users has dramatically changed the landscape of the web in a short time.
In alluding to the version numbers that commonly designate software upgrades, the phrase "Web
2.0" hints at an improved form of the WWW. Technologies such as weblogs (blogs), social
bookmarking, wikis, podcasts, RSS feeds (and other forms of many-to-many publishing), social
software, web APIs, and online web services such as eBay and Gmail provide enhancements
over read-only websites. Stephen Fry (actor, author, and broadcaster) describes Web 2.0 as "an
idea in people's heads rather than a reality. It's actually an idea that the reciprocity between the
user and the provider is what's emphasized. In other words, genuine interactivity, if you like,
simply because people can upload as well as download".
[3]
Web 2.0
Tim O’Reilly popularized web 2.0 as an expression when he wrote a fairly coherent definition.
Web 2.0 is definitely the next big thing in the WWW. It makes use of latest technologies and
concepts in order to make the user experience more interactive, useful and interconnecting. It has
brought yet another way to interconnect the world by means of collecting information and
allowing it to be shared affectively. It definitely has a bright future with so many Web 2.0 based
websites coming up. It is a revolution in the field of computers and will definitely achieve far
greater success
[1]

According to some sources, the term Web 2.0 has been around since about October 2004. From
Wikipedia, the free Web encyclopedia, it is defined as Web 2.0 is a term often applied to a
perceived ongoing transition of the WWW from a collection of websites to a full-fledged
computing platform serving web applications to end users. Ultimately web 2.0 services are
expected to replace desktop computing applications for many purposes.
[5]
3.1 Web 2.0 Website Types
:
Audio BlogPod Blogging Bookmarking Calendars
Chats Collaboration Communication Community CRM
E-commerce E-learning E-mail Filesharing Forums
Games Images Knowledge Base Lists Mapping
Mashups Multi-media Portals RSS Wiki
4. Web 3.0
Web 3.0 is a term that has been coined to describe the evolution of Web usage and interaction
that includes transforming the Web into a database. Web 3.0 is an era in which we will upgrade
the back-end of the Web, after a decade of focus on the front-end (Web 2.0 has mainly been
about AJAX, tagging, and other front-end user-experience innovations.) This in turn leads us to
the rumblings and mumblings we have begun to hear about Web 3.0, which seems to provide us
with a guarantee that vague web-versioning nomenclature is here to stay. By extending Tim
Berners-Lee's explanations, the Web 3.0 would be something akin to a "read-write-execute" web.
Web 3.0 is defined as the creation of high-quality content and services produced by gifted
individuals using web 2.0 technologies as an enabling platform.
[6]
Web 3.0 is a term that is used to describe various evolutions of Web usage and interaction along
several paths. These include transforming the Web into a database, a move towards making
content accessible by multiple non-browser applications, the leveraging of artificial intelligence
technologies, the Semantic web, the Geospatial Web, or the 3D web. Gartner suggests the need
to differentiate incremental changes to Web 2.0 from Web 3.0. Tim Berners-Lee coined Giant
Global Graph (GGG) as another facet of Web 3.0
[8]

Web 3.0 is a web where the concept of website or webpage disappears, where data isn't owned
but instead shared, where services show different views for the same web / the same data. Those
services can be applications (like browsers, virtual worlds or anything else), devices or other, and
have to be focused on context and personalization, and both will be reached by using vertical
search.
[13]
One could speculate that the Google / Sun Microsystems alliance to create a web
based operating system for applications like word processing and spreadsheets is an early
indicator of this trend.
[12]
Web 3.0
4.1 Examples of Web 2.0 based websites
1. Flickr – A photo sharing website which allows users to upload their photographs and
share it with anyone and everyone.
2. Orkut-Social networking site which allows the users to send messages and communicate
with other members.
3. YouTube – It allows the users to upload their videos and share it with everyone.
4. Blogs – Maintained by individuals or groups, they can be used to convey anything.
5. Google AD sense – Allows users to earn money through posting Google ads on their
websites.
6. Wikipedia – Online encyclopedia wherein the users contribute by writing the articles,
definitions, etc. It is completely edited and maintained by the users.
7. Scribd – Users can upload any documents on the website where other users can either
download or view those documents online

5. Comparison between web 1.0, web 2.0 and web 3.0
Web 1.0, Web 2.0 and Web 3.0
Sl.No
Web 1.0 Web 2.0 Web 3.0
1. 1996 2006 2016
2. The Web The Social Web The Semantic Web
3. Tim Berners Lee Tim O'Reilly Sir Tim Berners Lee
4. Read only web Read and write web Read, write and execute web
5. Information sharing Interaction Immersion.
6. Million of users Billion of users Trillion of users
7. Ecosystem Participation Understanding itself
8. Connect information Connect people Connect knowledge
9. Brain and Eyes (=
Information)
Brain, Eyes, Ears, Voice and
Heart (= Passion)
Brain, Eyes, Ears, Voice,
Heart, Arms and Legs (=
Freedom
10. The Hypertext/CGI Web.
(the basics)
The Community Web (for
people: apps/sites connecting
them).
The Semantic Web (for
machines).

11. Pushed web, text/graphics
based flash
Two way web pages, Wikis,
video, pod casts, shading,
Personal publishing, 2D
portals
3D portals, avtar
representation, Interoperable
profits, multi-user virtual
environment (MUVEs),
Integrated games, education
and business, all media flows
in and out of virtual Web
worlds
12. Companies publish
content that people
consume (e.g. CNN)
People publish content that
other people can consume,
companies build platforms
that let people publish
content for other people (e.g.
Flickr, YouTube, Adsense,
Wikipedia, Blogger,
MySpace, RSS, Digg)
People build applications
that other people can interact
with, companies build
platforms that let people
publish services by
leveraging the associations
between people or special
content (e.g. FaceBook,
Google Maps, My Yahoo!)
13. In Web 1.0 search engines
retrieve macro contents.
Search is very fast but
many times results are
inaccurate or more than
users can chew.
In Web 2.0 search engines
retrieve tags with micro
contents (Furl even retrieves
tags with macro contents).
The process of tagging is
manual, tedious and covers
negligible percents of the
WWW. Web 2.0 tags
everything: pictures, links,
events, news, Blogs, audio,
video, and so on. Google
Base even retrieves micro
content texts.
In Web 3.0 search engines
will hopefully retrieve micro
content texts which were
tagged automatically. This
implies translating billions of
Web 1.0 macro contents into
micro contents. The result
could be more precise search
because tagging can solve
part of the ambiguity that
homonyms and synonyms
introduce into the process of
search.

14. Web 1.0 was all about
static content, one way
publishing of content
without any real
interaction between
readers or publishers or
each other.
Web 2.0 is more about 2 way
communication through
social networking, blogging,
wikis, tagging, user
generated content and video.
Web 3.0 is curiusly
undefined. AI and the web
learning what you want and
delivering you a
personalized web
experience.
15. The web in the beginning
when it was first
developing web 1.0
New advances that allow a
much more sophisticated
user interaction with web
pages – citizen journalism,
social networks and Wikis
are all products of Web 2.0
Thought to be the future -
where the web is more
interactive with users,
leading to a kind of artificial
intelligence web 3.0
16. Personal web sites Blogs Semantic Blogs: SemiBlog,
Haystack, Semblog,
Structured Blogging
17. Content Management
system
Wikis, Wikipedia Semantic Wikis: Semantic
MediaWiki, SemperWiki,
Platypus, dbpedia, Rhizome
18. AltaVista, Google Google personalized,
DumpFind, Hakia
Semantic Search: SWSE,
Swoogle, Intellidimension
19. Citeseer, Project
Gutenberg
Google scholar, Book search Semantic Digital Libraries:
JeromDl, BRICKS,
Longwell
20. Message boards Community portals Semantic Forums and
community portals: SIOC,
OpenLink DataSpaces
21. Buddy Lists, Address
book
Online social networks Semantic Social Networks:
FOAF, PeopleAggregator
22. Semantic Social Information
Spaces: Nepomuk, Gnowsis

6. Conclusion
The web offers so many opportunities to people with disabilities that are unavailable through any
other medium. It offers independence and freedom. However, if a web site is not created with
web accessibility in mind, it may exclude a segment of the population that stands to gain the
most from the internet. Most people do not intend to exclude people with disabilities. As
organizations and designers become aware of and implement accessibility, they will ensure that
their content can be accessed by a broader population.
The Semantic Web (Web 3.0) promises to “organize the world’s information” in a dramatically
more logical way than Google can ever achieve with their current engine design. This is specially
true from the point of view of machine comprehension as opposed to human comprehension.The
Semantic Web requires the use of a declarative ontological language like OWL to produce
domain-specific ontologies that machines can use to reason about information and make new
conclusions, not simply match keywords. The effects of Web 2.0 are far-reaching. Like all
paradigm shifts, it affects the people who use it socially, culturally, and even politically. One of
the most affected groups is the designers and developers who will be building it—not just
because their technical skills will change, but also because they will need to treat content as part
of a unified whole, an ecosystem if you will, and not just an island. First, knowledge of all kinds
gets represented in a form that is interpretable both by people and machines. Second, different
forms of language in which knowledge is expressed begin to be interrelated and made
interchangeable with each other. Third, when knowledge is encoded in a semantic form, it
becomes transparent and accessible at any time to a variety of reasoning engines.

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BRIEF BIOGRAPHY OF AUTHOR
Mr. Umesha Naik is currently working as a Lecturer in the Department Library
and Information Science, Mangalore University, Mangalore. Prior to this he has
worked 8 years at INFLIBNET Centre. He obtained his B.L.I.Sc. degree from
Mangalore University and M.L.I.S from IGNOU. His areas of Interest are
Networking, Internet, Web Design, Digital and Electronic Libraries. He
published more then 15 articles in journals and seminar/conferences.
BRIEF BIOGRAPHY OF AUTHOR
Prof. D. Shivalingaiah is a Professor in Library and Information Science,
Mangalore University, Mangalore. He holds M.A. in Rural Development and
M.L.I.Sc. from BangaloreUniversity and Ph.D. from Mangalore University. He
has successfully guided a candidate for Ph.D. programme. Presently six
candidates are working under him for Ph.D. programme. He has publications in
Journals and Conference Proceedings and edited books.