Web 3.0 - Dare to think

Imagine a web where your browser knows what you want to search for.
Imagine login-protected websites which automatically recognize you and can use your details you allowed to be used.
Imagine a service like Digg or FaceBook which knows which news items you have interest for or which new members would you like to connect with, services which aggregates news items from hundreds of thousands of RSS feeds and you get only news you are interested in.
Imagine your fridge ordering products you are low on from the local grocery.

These are not futuristic ideas: these are all part of Web 3.0!

Website owners might think that Web 3.0 will be just another a headache, they just managed to make their sites Web 2.0 and now comes the next era, but it’s really not. Details about the users always been collected, but these details were not published neither for third-parties (at least not me) or the user itself.

The basic of the Web 3.0 era is that some data collected about the users is shared amongst web services. This enables for the web services to be extremely intelligent from the end-users’ point of view, as this way the services know the users from thier first visit. Currently every service learns about each user, but it can take several days or even weeks to have an acceptable knowledge about a user, which does not end at browser type or Flash version. Webmasters should know what their users are interested in, not flood a techie person with information about Greek literature or language lessons.
What will bring this for the webmasters and service owners? Just think a bit: how many browser tabs did you close in the past 7 days just because the webpage you opened wasn’t interesting for you?

Digg recently started to support “APML” (Attention Profiling Markup Language), a small green icon on the right sidebar. If you click the icon, then download the file to your PC and finally open it in your favorite text editor, you will see a code block, containing your interests, what you dugg, what categories you favor and so on. This is your attention profile, probably the base of Web 3.0.
Now take this APML file and use it on NewsGator, you don’t have to choose and/or specify new feeds, the service would find them for you.
Devoracles.com also supports APML, currently in beta. The idea is to show for our users posts which are relevant to their interests, for example we’ll not show you SEO related posts if you use to come only to read PC/Hardware reviews. The posts irrelevant to your interest will still be available, but not suggested for reading. As said before, it’s in beta state, we’re still experimenting the feature but our expectations are high.

Another Web 3.0 standard is OpenID. OpenID enables the users to create a profile at an OpenID provider then use that profile to log in to various websites which are OpenID enabled. Such OpenID providers are Yahoo!, MyOpenID.net and Verisign. This means the mammoths of the internet already joined the party, they are offering OpenID for their users. The problem is that there are only several thousand websites where you can use your OpenID, even if the idea behind OpenID is to simplify the users’ life: instead of remembering the username/email and the associated password on each website you register an account on, you have to remember one simple string like: yourname.myopenid.com. That’s it.
Devoracles.com supports OpenID, too. Scroll down the comments form and you’ll see that you can comment either by providing your open identity or by the legacy way, providing your desired nickname, e-mail address and optionally your website.

Another interesting direction of the web, which probably can be ported into Web 3.0 is Google’s Gears. While for Web 1.0 it was enough a dial-up internet connection, Web 2.0 is more bandwidth hungry: a broadband connection is necessary. This is mainly caused by the Flash animations, the multiple Javascript frameworks which are loaded on each page load and the graphics which makes some websites so dam cool (ex. http://ma.tt). Web 3.0 will be even more resource heavy: imagine 3D worlds where you can shop for your favorite DVDs or chat with your friends, the accent was on 3D; rendering 3D objects will put load both on the webmasters’ servers but on the end-users’ PC and connection, too.
Here can Gears help a bit. It has a feature, Local Server by name, which is able to store and then process some data on the end-users’ end, not requesting new connections and making additional transfers. This can reduce considerably the bandwidth load on the end-users’ end, but on the server’s side too.

And finally, why did I chose the title “Dare to think”. Because the possible uses of the above mentioned standards and applications are endless. The fridge ordering products is not sci-fi, the websites knowing you are neither part of the far future. We only have to think what would ease and make our life more interesting, so will Web 3.0 become a reality.

Wondering when will my PC order for itself a new RAM module…

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