So, what is Web 3?

We all know what the World Wide Web is, and probably use it every day to send emails, do some shopping, and look at social media. It was back in 2005 that I was talking about Web 2.0. Here’s what I said then…

Typically, Web 2.0 sites will be making use of techniques such as AJAX (see last week’s blog), Web syndication, and public Web APIs. What I’m talking about are things like blogs, wikis (and who needs to buy Encarta when the wonderful Wikipedia is only a click away), RSS, and podcasts. Web 2.0 sites successfully use information from their site’s visitors – for example Amazon recommends similar books that you might like when you order a book. Web 2.0 sites can also easily update the software they use – and do. This means that each time you browse the site, the experience can be slightly different, but should be better (faster and easier). Web 2.0 sites can incorporate or link to pages from other sites to improve the browser experience (mash-ups). For example, the Google Earth maps can be overlaid with bus routes (for example).

And now we’re at Web 3.0. The term ‘Web3’ was coined in 2014 by Ethereum co-founder Gavin Wood. So, what can we expect from Web 3.0 (also sometimes written as Web3)? Firstly, it uses blockchain technology, which was originally associated with cryptocurrencies because it is decentralized. That means there is no one copy of the database in use, there are multiple copies, which are stored on various computers (nodes) in a network. Blockchain is often referred to as a ‘ledger based’ system or ‘Distributed Ledger Technology’. Of course, blockchain can be found on mainframes

Like any concept based on people’s ideas, Web 3.0 has slightly different meanings to different people, but generally it can be recognized as different from Web 2.0 because it has certain characteristics. You find people talking about semantic web, which is supposed to make Internet data machine-readable. The use of artificial intelligence or machine learning can speed up the process and help to provide the user with the information they need. 3D graphics are also something found with Web3. And Internet data is available everywhere on all sorts of Edge devices. The use of blockchain and decentralized data is meant to give individuals more control over how their data is used.

Understanding natural language is an important part of Web3. How often have you had to repeat an instruction to your Alexa device? It can process natural language using cognitive technology, which makes the possibilities of what can be done so much greater than a reliance on keywords. But, other people like to think of Web3 as a way of giving control of the Internet back to the users, using blockchain, and orchestrating it with tokens. They see it in terms of decentralized social networks (sorry Facebook), monetized video-style games, and non-fungible token (NFT) platforms.

Companies like Facebook won’t be able to sell on user’s information because they won’t have access to it. Adverts won’t follow people around from site to site. And users can earn money in different ways on different sites and invest money in different things.

In fact, the use of tokens could become a really big thing in a few years’ time as Internet users become more than simple customers, they also become participants and shareholders. And Google, Facebook, and Twitter lose their control of the Internet.

The Web3 foundation says: “Our mission is to nurture cutting-edge applications for decentralized web software protocols. Our passion is delivering Web 3.0, a decentralized and fair internet where users control their own data, identity and destiny. It also goes on to say: “Web3 Foundation believes in an internet where:

• Users own their own data, not corporations
• Global digital transactions are secure
• Online exchanges of information and value are decentralized.

Will we ever see a recognizable Web3? The answer is almost definitely yes. There are some sites now that are Web3 or Web3-ish. Certainly, many people don’t like their data to be bought and sold by Facebook and other big players. And the gambling industry and games industry are very big and are likely to take advantage of Web3 – which means it will be getting a push from them in many directions. And NFTs are gaining in popularity. So, it is very likely that their association with Web3 will grow.

I just wonder how many years it will take before we are talking about Web 4.0?