From its earliest days, one of the primary uses of the Web has been self-expression, starting with simple Webcams trained on coffee machines and homegrown gossip sites, and working up to today's social networking sites and video-sharing services.
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 Introduction WWW: Past, Present, And Future• Beginnings • The Web Debuts • Better Browsers, New Media • E-Commerce And Search • Self-Expression Ascendant Browser Wars: The Saga Continues The Skinny On Web 2.0 WWW Pop-Up Timeline Browser Image Gallery |
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The advent of easy-to-use tools for blogging, sharing photos and videos, and otherwise creating online content has driven this growth. The end result is that people are becoming not just consumers, but contributors -- a notion that lies at the heart of the Web's newest movement: Web 2.0.
Editor's Note: For more about what Web 2.0 means, along with a list of today's top Web 2.0 sites, see the sidebar The Skinny On Web 2.0
One of the key factors in the Web 2.0 movement is technology. As Web developers master emerging tech such as Ajax, Web sites can implement a wide array of new feature sets that increase users' access and capabilities, which in turn allows them to create more original content for the Web.
 The video-sharing service YouTube is at the heart of today's Web 2.0 movement. |
So What's Beyond Web 2.0?
Web 3.0, of course. But what does that consist of? It's impossible to know for sure, but as users become busier, it's not unfeasible to imagine some level of automated artificial intelligence routines that manage various aspects of our digital lives. As an example: Imagine a Web-based calendar application that intelligently arranges your schedule based on input from other people's calendars -- without any input from you. The concept that a computer or network can not only provide access to data, but also make sense of that data in a meaningful and impactful way is known as the Semantic Web.
Beyond the Semantic Web, there's another aspect of future Web development that has yet to be accounted for: What happens to the Web as the billions of people who have no access now start to come online? It's not really Web 2.0 or Web 3.0, but the impact that an extra billion people from cultures around the world will have on the Web will be significant in a multitude of ways. For the first time, the World Wide Web will truly be a worldwide phenomenon.
Judging by the astonishing development of the last 15 years, we're going to go out on a limb here with a single prediction: There's no way anyone can accurately predict what shape the Web will take 15 years from now.
