Preparing for Web 3.0
blog.openconceptual.com
blog.openconceptual.com
Do you think he's spot on, and know any reasons for or against it?
I don't think the web can grow much more complex without it outgrowing our ability (as both users and providers) to use it effectively -- at least not to its full potential. Therefore growth will probably have to be balanced by growth in our intuitive knowledge and competencies: education.
To me, it seems that the average user has to know less and less about the underlying web in order to use it to do things. Perhaps you're talking about people that build tools on the web?
I should've just said "Second Life." Those users -- at least the ones who stick around -- invest alot of capital (cultural, emotional, financial, etc).
I don't know if Second Life will be the company that gets the next wave right, but I think we should look at what they (and their users) are doing, to see who'll be the big winners in 5 to 10 years.
Here's a fairly recent post on GigaOM about it: http://gigaom.com/2007/09/26/7-reasons-why-second-life-shoul...
...and then there's the story posted by pg about declining use of wikipedia:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Dragons_flight/Log_analysi... ... and my comment on there: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=66946
You make a good point about the average user needing to know less and less. Which is great, I hope that continues -- and I'm sure it will...
But that also means that users may not be developing any kind of knowledge capital or competence -- unlike the people who build tools.
Developers don't just build tools; they also build their own knowledge and skills at the same time. And their knowledge and skills are specifically 'invested in' (or to use another metaphor, 'married to') those tools, platforms, and applications that they develop. The fact that developers have invested so many years learning to master PHP, Ruby, etc, makes those tools even more valuable -- it makes it less likely for developers to leave them behind.
Whereas the value of web sites and applications to users doesn't necessarily follow the same curve. The fact that it's becoming easier to use means they don't have to make any kind of an investment -- maybe it's just something they do to avoid doing work. After two or three years of using MySpace, how much value, equity, or affinity has been created between MySpace and the user?
My example in the essay was that right now MySpace is doing pretty well, but its value is more in the people using it than the site itself; if users start spending less time there and go somewhere else, like Facebook, they might merely follow each other.
The question to ask is, What would users be leaving behind if they left? What might they follow?
Here's a concrete example: retail rewards cards. (But I think web users are as easily fooled by those kinds of schemes.)
Obviously this is a work in progress. Thanks for pushing me to develop my case.
Web. Web Social. Web Ubiqu. Web Singularity.
I guess most hackers don't like the term web/bubble 2.0/3.0 is because it's overloaded, and hence, imprecise. Thus, ripe for exploitation by marketers, which generally have a bad rep with hackers (sometimes with good reason).
I think the author just means "the next evolutionary step of the web" Just as when people are talking about 2.0, they just mean that the web now was far different than it was back in 1996.
As to the earlier comment, the whole point of the essay is that we need to look at fads as if they are bubbles, users as if they're investors. See Davenport and Becks 'Attention Economy' as well as Mark Anielski's 'Economics of Happiness'. And to see the where I'm eventually trying to lead, see David Warsh's 'Knowledge and the Wealth of Nations' and the 2005 World Bank paper called "Where is the Wealth of Nations."
Yet another article about web 3.0, blah.