Jason Calacanis on Web 3.0

I really don't get the Web 3.0 meme, which I have seen introduced at least a dozen times by all sorts of people. Some have been advancing the term as a synonym for the semantic web, but others have put forward other definitions, usually as part of some ultimately fruitless marketing ploy to define a market niche and place their shiny new product smack in the middle of it.

That's what Jason Calacanis appears to be doing.

I formerly read Jason's blog avidly, but since he launched Mahalo he has become a monomaniac. Everything revolves around his new shiny product. And now, it seems, the future of the web does, as well:

[from Web 3.0, the official definition.]

Web 3.0 is defined as the creation of high-quality content and services produced by gifted individuals using Web 2.0 technology as an enabling platform.

Ahem... like the individuals that are building the Mahalo index, that sits above the existing web?

I personally feel that Web 2.0 has a long way to play before we can advocate jumping onto some new wave. Have we seen the full culmination of the social revolution going on? No, and I think it will be awhile before we do.

Personally, I feel the vague lineaments of something beyond Web 2.0, and they involve some fairly radical steps. Imagine a Web without browsers. Imagine breaking completely away from the document metaphor, or a true blurring of application and information. That's what Web 3.0 will be, but I bet we will call it something else.

Comments

[Bob Warfield]

I couldn't agree more. Putting aside Jason's total focus on promoting his latest, people just seem to want to think linearly: we get 2.0, what's 3.0?

Truth is that it doesn't seem like we really have got 2.0 groked. Pmarca is sure stumping around some aspects:

http://smoothspan.wordpress.com/2007/10/04/what-is-a-social-network-anyway-hint-its-not-geocities/

But there's still a lot more to Web 2.0 than Social Networking. We're not done inventing the landscape yet.

Best,

BW