WEB 2.0 and WEB 3.0
Definition
Web 2.0 is an extension of the original web and for the most part uses the existing components available in the original web. The original web had two classes of users – content producers and content consumers. Web developers created content that was then viewed using an internet browser. Web 2.0 blurs that user distinction. Creating web content is a shared activity. Normal users view, create, and modify content.
Some sites are social networking sites for the expressed purpose of meeting new friends or finding old ones. These sites, such as MySpace and Facebook, allow subscribers to share text, images, and video with their online “friends”.
Other sites use the interactivity available through Web 2.0 to engage in collaborative development. A prime example of such a site is Wikipedia. It would be equivalent to Encyclopedia Britannica providing bound books of blank pages on which they encouraged the users to provide the terms to be defined AND their definitions. Wiki books allow teachers or even their students to write textbooks. Other examples of ground-roots development are the folksonomies created by various Web 2.0 sites that allow users to “tag” items. These tags provide a kind of metadata that describes the content item. Web logs (blogs) are a hybrid including both social networking and grassroots website development.
A new Web 2.0 business model has developed where people are able to gain financial rewards for their creations. This is in addition to online auction sites like eBay and Craigslist which is a type of “social marketing”. Photo libraries like Shutterstock and iStockPhoto allow photographers to upload pictures that are then purchased by web designers or other graphic arts consumers. The websites, themselves, provide the online “shelf space” and shopping cart. I will talk further about these types of applications when I discuss my sample applications.
Pros and cons?
Each of the categories of Web 2.0 sites has its positives and negatives. An often mentioned quality of Web 2.0 is its “democratization” of information. There is no longer an information oligarchy that controls the creation and distribution of information derived from its economic and technical position.
Another feature is the real-time updates available online. News no longer needs to wait for the “daily addition” or the nightly television broadcast. Blogs, and various news channels provide immediate coverage and comment on events. Textbooks can be updated with corrections and additions without the time and expense of a new printing or new edition.
With all the flexibility comes a risk. Misinformed or misguided individuals can induce errors into the online information. Social networks can be utilized by predators who can take advantage of the naïve.
Sample Applications
I began my search for Web 2.0 applications at go2web20.net which purports to be “the complete Web2.0 sites directory.” Here are the sites I investigated and how they could be used in a classroom.
1. PicNik – A shared photo editing application.
o Could be used by students creating a project requiring original images
o The onscreen cropping tool includes a grid that aids in using the “rule of thirds”
2. Twitter – Social networking “mini-blogging” tool
o I way of encouraging and tracking student progress toward a learning goal
o Project milestones can be self-reported by students and available for viewing by the teacher “follows” the student
3. EduSlide – A collection of grass-roots learning objects that can be shared
o There are complete courses available to which students can be directed for background information
o Because it is also an online learning management system, an instructor could use it as the delivery method for a course.
What is Web 3.0?
I thought you would never ask! I am actually giving a presentation on Web 3.0/Semantic Web at the TechNet conference in March. The short answer is: “Web 3.0 applies meaning, semantics, to a web application.” One or two paragraphs are not enough space so here are some pictures (that should take the place of a couple of thousand words).
(Tim Berners-Lee 2006)
Tim Berners-Lee presented his vision for a semantic web a decade ago. According to him, “The Semantic Web is not a separate Web but an extension of the current one, in which information is given well-defined meaning, better enabling computers and people to work in cooperation.” The “well-defined meaning” is primarily associated with metadata in RDF format. The image on the right is Tim’s “layer cake” showing the semantic web with a foundation of Unicode (that is the way that text is stored in a computer), URI (Uniform Resource Identifier of which URL for website addresses is a subset), and XML (eXtensible Markup Language which uses tags and is the foundation for RSS and other applications). RDF (Resource Description Format) is an extension of XML and is made up of subject-predicate-object triples. An example would be a person’s email. The triple would be Jim(subject) email address(predicate) jdv06820@ucmo.edu (object). Ontologies are graphical representations of the relationships within an area of study and utilizes RDF. A common language for creating an ontology is OWL (Web Ontology Language – the jumbling of the letters in the acronym is a reflection of the influence of Winnie the Pooh on the original developers. You see the owl spelled his name WOL.) In many ways an ontology resembles a concept map with the connecting lines between concepts labeled to indicate relationship such as “is-a” or “is-part-of”. Jim “is-a” human being. Right leg “is-part-of” Jim. These are both triples in the RDF-sense.
The Logic level of Tim’s layer cake will allow computers to compare information in ontologies to discover analogies or synonyms. In a standard web search if you searched on “rock” all you would get back is a list of websites containing the word “rock” or a derivative of “rock”, but you wouldn’t get back websites about stones or pebbles. The meaning, semantics, as well as the syntax must be understood and evaluated.
The Trust level may be manifest using something like the FOAF (Friend of a friend) a “project [which] is creating a Web of machine-readable pages describing people, the links between them and the things they create and do.” FOAF is an ontology.
(captured from: Semantic Universe - Webcast 3: Semantic Web in Use)
Currently pharmaceutical companies are using linked data to discover relationships that can point to additional uses for patented drugs. Web developers are beginning to include micro-formatting in their websites. The microformat tags give specific meaning to metadata such things as name, address, phone, author , and date. Semantics is also being incorporated into many of the more popular search engines.
NASA is using semantic technologies to understand the different vocabularies used by the various disciplines involved in the project to take men to Mars. A single component may have several different names:
- Hardware nomenclature: Flow Control Valve
- Software nomenclature: 3-way Mix Valve
- Telemetry nomenclature: HXB (Heat eXchange Bypass) valve
Jim, I'm amazed at your level of understanding of Web 3.0!! I just read your explanition and I'm still sitting here going "huh". I guess I'll figure it out one day when Web 3.0 is actually out there and not just a concept.
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