What is the web?
Well, that sounds like a ridiculous question. If you’re reading this, you most likely have a general grasp on the whole internet thing. The questions I’m setting out to answer today are: how has the web evolved? What’s the future of the web? Finally, and perhaps most importantly, what will this future version of the web look like for printed media?
Web 1.0 and 2.0
Before we tackle those hard-hitting questions, let’s start a bit smaller. Let me be clear: I was born in 2002. I was but a speck in my mother’s eye, and the internet had already largely grown out of Web 1.0. I think that was perhaps its biggest problem, its youth. Web 1.0 was a term only coined after Web 2.0 had made its debut (kind of like WW1 only less depressing). Web 1.0 pages were almost entirely static, informational dumps which offered the end user very little interactivity. Web 1.0 “came out” in 1989 and fell (largely) out of use by 2005, and its successor was the venerable Web 2.0.
Web 2.0 brought an entire new dimension to the internet. In fact, I believe the only reason the Internet has caught on to, according to statista.com, 4.66 billion people. Yes, with a ‘b.’ This iteration of the internet brought interactivity to webpages. People could now contribute their own work to websites, rather than just the website host. Web 2.0 is also better at being comprehensive tools, much like traditional PC software. Flash games wouldn’t be possible without the advent of the web’s sequel, and finally this interactivity served as an invitation for users to contribute their creative work to the web. The brute of network applications are ideally handled by the internet, instead of the user’s PC. CBS describes Web 2.0 by example: “In a Web 2.0 world, instead of merely reading a newsletter, for example, you might begin to publish one of your own.”
Web 2.0 and 3.0
One of Web 2.0’s most important innovations is perhaps its adaptability to mobile. As soon as Steve Jobs introduced the world to iPhone in 2007, the scope of the internet became much more easily accessible. Now, with cheaper and cheaper android devices available across the world, mobile internet is by far the most popular, and the most important market for the web.
Web 3.0 is often called the semantic web, in which technologies are improved to literally understand the meaning of words in order to better generate and connect content. Instead of searching by keywords, artificial intelligence with understand the words and sentences you ask/search in order to give you the best results, according to expert.ai.
I’d like to do a little bit of daydreaming here, I imagine talking to something like a Google Home, and having actual, genuine, human-like conversation with it. Maybe debate politics, have it call to make reservations for you at a local restaurant (which in some capacity, already exists), or even ask it to give you advice for an upcoming job interview. Asking for the latest news could be as natural as asking a friend. Of course this poses obvious problems and risky loop holes, like giving a corporation like Google that much power, but I like to daydream in ideals.
Web 3.0 will also utilize AI to be faster, and more ubiquitously connected to your devices. I honestly believe Web 2.0 will become a comfort zone for people, with how intrusive Web 3.0 has the potential to become.
Web 3.0 and what it means for Print
I think Web 3.0 will just be the final nail in the coffin for print. Local journalism is already struggling to sell newspapers, and to an extent even television news is slowing down according to journalism.org. With the unmatched power and seamless connectivity that Web 3.0 allows, I honestly believe it will become harder to stay out-of-the-know rather than in.
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