Why Web 3.0 may be a step backwards from Web 2.0

First off, for the purposes of this post I would like to declare that in using the phrase “web 3.0″ I’m referring to the semantic (defined as “meaning”) and “web 2.0″ as collaboration. My apologies in advance to my techie friends who would argue that web 2.0 means a lot more than that (and you know that I know that!).

I wanted to learn more about the semantic web so I read John Breslin, Alexandre Passant and Stefan’s Decker’s excellent book, “The Social Semantic Web“. The authors provide a nice introduction to semantics and the web, defining and describing various metadata formats (e.g. RDF) and ontologies (e.g. OWL).

I’m now concerned about the progress we’ve made moving the web (both technically and socially) towards a more collaborative environment.

There are many components of the semantic web that will still support collaboration (e.g. the semantic wiki, tagging and social networking). But my concern is about the automated, machine-driven ontologies and metadata schemas. The terms, definitions and applications associated with these are, again, decided by a closed group of individuals (qualified, I might add but closed nonetheless) who determined what will be labeled what. This will affect who will find what.

Unless the terms used in these ontologies are already known the information seeker using their favourite search engine the end results may be the same as someone trying to find a book indexed by the Dewey Decimal system without knowing the meaning of the numeric codes.

What if you have access to the number but not its meaning? Why are we denying access to the developments of these standards and not using a community driven folksonomy? Or what if you were denied access to the process? Where’s the collaboration in that?

Tags: collaboration, semantic, web 2.0, web 3.0

This entry was posted on May 1, 2010 at 3:55 pm and is filed under Stuff. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.