Evolution of Web (from Web 1.0, Web 2.0 to Web 3.0)

The Web was created in 1989 by Sir Tim Berners-Lee, working at CERN (The European Organization for Nuclear Research) in Geneva, Switzerland. Since then, Berners-Lee has played an active role in guiding the development of web standards and in recent years has advocated his vision of Semantic web.

Web 1.0

First, let's start with Web 1.0. Web 1.0 refers to the first stage of the World Wide Web evolution. When the web was created initially, it did not have features and facilities for users to interact. It began as a platform for businesses and organizations to broadcast information to the people. In Web 1.0 environment, users read what others wrote.

Features of Web 1.0 sites:

1. Includes static pages;

2. Content is served from the server's file-system.

3. Server Side Includes or Common Gateway Interface (CGI) were used to build pages.

4. Frames and Tables used to position and align the elements on a page.

Web 2.0

Web 2.0 is a second generation of the World Wide Web which highlights the new capabilities and services offered by the Web that facilitate online collaboration and sharing among users. These capabilities include social networking, wikis, instant messaging and social tagging.

Tim O'Reilly and Dale Dougherty O'Reilly (2005), responsible for coining the term Web 2.0 defines it as "applications that make the most of the intrinsic advantages of that platform: delivering software as a continually-updated service that gets better as more people use it, consuming and remixing data from multiple sources, including individual users, while providing their own data and services in a form that allows remixing by others, creating network effects through an 'architecture of participation', and going beyond the page metaphor of Web 1.0 to deliver rich user experiences".

With the evolution in Internet and Communication Technology, Web 2.0 evolved from static HTML web pages to a more dynamic, interactive and collaborative Web platform that facilitates the exchange of information and knowledge amongst its users. These features facilitate the integration of people and the Web.

Other improved functionality of Web 2.0 includes open communication with an emphasis on web-based communities of users and more open sharing of information. Blogs, Wikis, and Web services are all seen as components of Web 2.0.

Web 2.0 moved us from a “read-only” Internet to what experts would call a "read-write" Internet.

The key features of Web 2.0 include:

1. Folksonomy- free classification of information: Web 2.0 allows users to create free classification/ arrangement of information over web. For example, Social Tagging;

2. Rich User Experience: Web 2.0 uses AJAX（Asynchronous JavaScript + XML) to present dynamic, GUI based rich user experience to users. For example, Google Maps;

3. User as a Contributor: In Web 2.0, user also contributes to the content by means of evaluation, review & commenting;

4. Long-tail: Web 2.0 services are long-known;

5. User Participation: In Web 2.0, users participate in content sourcing, also known as Crowdsourcing. For example, Wikipedia & YouTube;

6. Basic Trust: In earlier web, the contents are protected under Intellectual Property Rights, while in Web 2.0 the contents are made available to share, reuse, redistribute and edit. For examples Wikipedia & Creative Common; and

7. Dispersion: Web 2.0 uses multiple channels that include file sharing & permalinks to deliver content. The typical examples are Bit Torrent and Mashup.

Usage of Web 2.0

Web 2.0 applications tend to interact much more with the end-user. Web 2.0 also known as Social Web contains a number of online tools and platforms where people share their opinions, thoughts and experiences. Some example of such tools are Podcasting, Blogging, Tagging, Curating with RSS, Social bookmarking, Social networking, Social media, Web content voting, etc.

Web 3.0

Web 3.0 is the third generation of internet services for websites and applications that focuses on using a machine-based understanding of data to provide a data-driven and semantic web. The ultimate goal of Web 3.0 is to create more intelligent, connected and open websites.

Tim Berners-Lee has described the semantic web as a component of "Web 3.0". It refers to the evolution of web utilization and interaction which includes altering the web into a database. In this, data isn’t owned but instead shared, where services show different views for the same web / the same data.

The Semantic Web (3.0) promises to establish “the world’s information” in a more reasonable way than Google can ever attain with their existing engine schema. This is particularly true from the perspective of machine conception as opposed to human understanding. The Semantic Web necessitates the use of a declarative ontological language like OWL to produce domain-specific ontologies that machines can use to reason about information and make new conclusions, not simply match keywords.

Smart home appliances using wireless networks and the Internet of Things (IoT) are two examples of how Web 3.0 is already impacting technology.

Below are the five main features of Web 3.0:

1. Semantic Web: The succeeding evolution of the Web involves the Semantic Web. The semantic web improves web technologies in demand to create, share and connect content through search and analysis based on the capability to comprehend the meaning of words, rather than on keywords or numbers.

2. Artificial Intelligence: Combining this capability with natural language processing, in Web 3.0, computers can distinguish information like humans in order to provide faster and more relevant results. They become more intelligent to fulfil the requirements of users.

3. 3D Graphics: The three-dimensional design is being used widely in websites and services in Web 3.0. Museum guides, computer games, e-commerce, geospatial contexts, etc. are all examples that use 3D graphics.

4. Connectivity: With Web 3.0, information is more connected thanks to semantic metadata. As a result, the user experience evolves to another level of connectivity that leverages all the available information.

5. Ubiquity: Content is accessible by multiple applications, every device is connected to the web, the services can be used everywhere.

Comparison between Web 1.0, Web 2.0 and Web 3.0

Web 1.0	Web 2.0	Web 3.0
1996	2006	2016
The Web	The Social Web	The Semantic Web
Sir Tim Berners Lee	Tim O’Reilly	Sir Tim Berners Lee
Read only web	Read and write web	Read, write and execute web
Web 1.0 was all about static content, one-way publishing of content without any real interaction between readers or publishers or each other.	Web 2.0 is more about 2-way communication through social networking, blogging, wikis, tagging, user-generated content and video.	Web 3.0 is curiously undefined. AI and the web learning what you want and delivering you a personalized web experience.
The web in the beginning when it was first developing Web 1.0	New advances that allow much more sophisticated user interaction with web pages – citizen journalism, social networks and Wikis are all products of Web 2.0	Thought to be the future – where the web is more interactive with users, leading to a kind of artificial intelligence Web 3.0
Britannica Online	Wikipedia	The Semantic Web
HTML / Portals	XML / RSS	RDF / RDFS / OWL

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