My Vision of Web 3.0

Breaking out my crystal ball I have some visions of what I would like Web 3.0 to be. Before I get into that though I should probably qualify what Web 2.0 is to me....

Web 2.0 has brought about the advent of social networking and instant communications--this includes Facebook, MySpace, major adoption of instant messaging, Digg, Blogs, Wikis, mobile communications (texting, IM, & mail on phones), Podcasts, Photocasts, video chats, Skype, major adoption of digital cameras and the corresponding Flickr & PicasaWeb, online file storage (box.net, etc.), Gmail, Google Apps, and of course, RSS/XML implementation. That's a lot of stuff, and for me, Web 2.0 is about the massive bevy of information, communication, and news that's available at a moment's notice. If you're an enthusiast, it can also become overwhelming. Sometimes I feel more obligated to keep up on my RSS feeds than my e-mail. Strange, but true. I am a sponge for this stuff. I've embraced many of the technologies myself but it's coming to a point where there are several alternatives in each segment and not everyone follows one or the other. I have Facebook, MySpace, and LinkedIn accounts, as well as some others. I can't keep up on all of them so I pretty much gravitate to one from each category, but even that can be overwhelming. This is where my vision of Web 3.0 comes in.

I believe (or at least I want to believe) will be about transparency. I want all of these wonderful web-delivered applications to integrate at some level and be more intuitive to use (my mom is still struggling with trying to upload photos, and she's one of the braver ones to even try in my family) and talk to each other. I think there are hints of it with Google because Blogger and PicasaWeb are kind of linked (not totally, but a little) and of course you're either in the dark ages or a rebel if you don't have a Gmail account these days. Of course Google also has their Jabber-based IM client too so they're building the suite. Of course, some people are mumbling that Google is becoming the Evil Empire to replace Microsoft but that remains to be seen.

So, there's my prediction, Web 3.0 will be refinement and natural selection of the best of breed of the categories of Web 2.0 applications and it will be transparent and unobtrusive and intuitive. Now, can someone please make it happen SOON??? I might even pay $9.99 per month for it all ;-).