User participation on Web 1.0 websites is not instantaneously published. User participation on Web 2.0 websites is instantaneous. Therefore, the next generation of websites will have to be quicker than instantaneous; Web 3.0 will preempt user’s participation.
Lots of the Web is already preemptive. Google suggests what the user will be searching for, but a preemptive web has to go further.
Users have to geotag their images on Flickr. A preemptive web would compare images taken with others and calculate its location. It’d judge videos content and tag them automatically. This is clearly beyond what current technology, but it should be a key part of Web 3.0 . Photos from the same event would also automatically be grouped together (through analysing geotags, comments, timestamps and other information, such as invites recorded on the system).
Encyclopedias would automatically grab news and update themselves accordingly, instead of relying on users to do so as Wikipedia does.
Twitter would automatically follow people, through analysing connections with businesses and other followers. Same goes with most other social network sites.
It’s quite simple. Web 3.0 will automate monotonous tasks, like tagging, which Web 2.0 requires to be done manually. Perhaps this automation won’t be recognised as Web 3.0, but just another aspect of Web 2.0.
Some of these are already happening of course, be it in a much less automated fashion perhaps. Think of the semantic and contextual tools that are out there, like Zemanta or Calais’ Tagaroo (which suggests images to your blog posts) but also some others like Juice, the semantic search tool.
On the whole though, I’d have to agree and hope for a next web that does include these features. Would be cool…