Tangent Thought Gallery

Web “version” cheat sheet

It’s no surprise that there’s still confusion about Web 2.0, as well as the distinctions between Web 1.0, Web 2.0, and Web 3.0. It’s a bit surprising, however, when firms in the industry don’t get it right (note the email that came in this week from the Web Buyer’s Guide and IBM—I really think they meant it to say “3.0″, not “2.0″). Since there’s still confusion out there, I thought I’d toss out a high level cheat sheet to help slice and dice your way through those distinctions.

Granted, these definitions are subjective. Also, it wasn’t easy to constrain each to 25 words or less, but I believe they’re fairly accurate. If you’ve got something better please let me know.

(Apparently) universal truths
An energetic consultant runs into your office and enthusiastically exclaims “This (web version) will enable you to develop rich user experiences, powerfully engage your customers, and transform your business as never before!”; to which specific web version would she/he be referring? Of course the answer is “all the above”. With the advent of each ‘version’, if you will, industry pundits, analysts, and especially vested software vendors have lauded the concept as finally enabling the use of the net as a platform. This was true back in the 90s and the choir hasn’t changed the tune yet. If there’s a Web 4.0+ to come, you can bank on the fact that the same will apply then as well. However, this does not mean the consultant will be wrong…some incredible things (have and) will be done.

Another item that applies to each version: much can be said about the limits, extensions, and applicability of different technologies and standards to each. Truthfully, much of the inner workings of each use identical technologies. There are a few distinctions but not as many as one might think. This is why I’d contend the differences are more in the functional attributes rather than the underlying technologies. Sure, there are newer technologies, as well as maturation of older, highly reliable tools, but I’d still side with functional elegance as distinctive characteristics.

Fact vs. fiction
Web 1.0 works fine. Much has, and will continue to be, accomplished with these technologies. They will continue to evolve while others will mature. You don’t necessarily need a Web 2.0 site. If all you’re doing is successfully selling T shirts and toe nail clippers online, keep at it. It’s not broken. Can you benefit from 2.0? Quite possibly. But it’s equally possible that if you integrate 2.0 features you could be wasting your time with only a veneer of pay back. Like any feature, there should be solid potential for ROI before you begin writing development bits to disk.

How about 3.0? Here the ink is still too wet on the concepts to cash in. However, my take is there really is tremendous potential for integration with a *mature* semantic web, kind of like RSS on steroids. How long that takes to become a reality, to gain industry and enterprise wide traction, remains today’s exercise in speculation.

This all kind of suggests a question. Were dial-up bulletin boards the advent of Web 2.0 back in the late 80s and we just didn’t realize it? Of course I’m joking, but it just demonstrates that many of the concepts have been around for a while.