Web 3.0? 2010 Web? Next Web? Toothpick bird?
We’re in the middle of another Internet land rush: the race to name the next generation of the Web. No mean feat given the confusion and uproar created by the appellation ‘Web 2.0’ - almost 10 years ago now. Some of the early contenders include: ‘Web 3.0’ (10/10 for imagination!), the ‘2010 Web’ (perhaps a tad too close to 2009 to be new?), the ‘Next Web’ (a safe bet), the ‘Real Time Web’ (already happening?), the ‘Toothpick Bird’ (nonsense, but that may just be the point). But names aside, how can we be sure that we’re in or about to enter a new Web era?
The interesting point about Web 2.0 is that the argument over who actually coined the term and what it was intended to mean is ongoing, and therein lies a clue. The Internet is the terra nova of the 21st century complete with its own Wild West. In other words, anyone who puts in the research and development time can lay claim to a neologism, to a new concept, to a new theory and ultimately test it out. We can corroborate ‘newness’ by a simple Google search; unlike other areas of history, the anals of the Internet are detailed and readily searchable (save perhaps for video and audio content - bane of the search engine spider).
To push this Wild West analogy a little further, we can identify three types of people in our new-found-land: the ‘explorers’, the ‘colonists’, and people in the ‘old country’. The explorers are intent on discovery, on pioneering new ideas and uncovering new ground. They are followed closely by the colonists who have just enough distance to see patterns emerge and to give those patterns a name. Folks back in the old country say they’re quite happy with life as it and they’ll get round to visiting the new land all in good time.
The person(s) responsible for the proliferation of the term ‘Web 2.0’ was an early colonist. The people intent on marking a new era of the Web today belong to a new breed who studied and learnt from Web 2.0 and I detect a hint of ‘darkness’ at the heart of their mission. Why partake in a race to name and claim a new Web if not to pursue personal interest and the search for accolades? Gold diggers beware! An accolade is a mark of recognition that is bestowed upon someone for their work, it is not something you’ll find buried in the sand.
The name game is a gamble, it relies to an extent on intuition. This is because the development of the Web - even at this embryonic stage - is showing a complex evolutionary process. It is part human thought and engineering, part chance, but interestingly also part artificial intelligence. It is a process that we initiated, and one that has eluded our control - or at least the control of those back in the ‘old country’. Unlike physical world terra nova, the Web is potentially an endless space given its exponential properties and that may well be one of its greatest assets in a world which seems increasingly small - in many ways we’ve gone back to the cave…
Call it what you will, but we should not let the pursuit of names obscure or hinder innovation, openness and the chance to gaze into the great abyss - the unknown.
