About Mobility

I was quite fascinated by a recent article in the Communications of the ACM written by Web luminaries James Hendler, Nigel Shadbolt, Wendy Hall, Tim Berners-Lee, and Daniel Weitzner titled Web Science: An Interdisciplinary Approach to Understanding the Web (Communications of the ACM).

The article argues that while the micro aspects of the Web (networking, protocols and Web applications, etc.) are all well understood, the macro side of the web is not (its evolution, usage, behavior, social impacts, and so on); this a very accurate observation. The authors propose a new science field of study — the Web Science:

The Web must be studied as an entity in its own right to ensure it keeps flourishing and prevent unanticipated social effects.
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Despite the Web’s great success as a technology and the significant amount of computing infrastructure on which it is built, it remains, as an entity, surprisingly unstudied. Here, we look at some of the technical and social challenges that must be overcome to model the Web as a whole, keep it growing, and understand its continuing social impact. A systems approach, in the sense of “systems biology,” is needed if we are to be able to understand and engineer the future Web.

For this, the Web Science Research Initiative (WSRI) was been formed:

The Web Science Research Initiative brings together academics, scientists, sociologists, entrepreneurs and decision makers from around the world. These people will create the first multidisciplinary research body to examine the World Wide Web and offer the practical solutions needed to help guide its future use and design.

The Web continues to evolve, having a tremendous impact on our society. It really is as seeing a biological entity grow and evolve; and this is because people are evolving it (and vice-versa), and thus it has the unpredictability that comes from humans beings; it is a beautiful thing.

There is a lot to be learned about the Web beyond the technology found at its micro level, under the covers. There is a lot to learned on how it grows and evolves, and the impact that is has on people and their interactions, and on society. But also the impact the other way; of the people and the society and economic factors that have on the evolution of the Web. The following Colliding Web Science illustrates this complexity:

And when considering the mobile factor, another level of complexity is added to the Web equation (science)…

I hope to see this new field and discipline evolve into a formal area of study of science, with concentrations on mobile and the Web.

ceo

Jason McCabe Calacanis has come up with the “official” definition of Web 3.0:

Web 3.0 is defined as the creation of high-quality content and services produced by gifted individuals using Web 2.0 technology as an enabling platform.

…and a very lame definition that is. I’m sorry.

Inherent in the definition of a major milestone or “version” (such as 1.x, 2.x, and 3.x) is something big, a big change, a big impact…

Web 2.0 was about openness, and user content and services (anyone’s content and services), and the collective social influence and effects. But Web 3.0, per Jason, is about exclusion: about high-quality content, by gifted individuals.

Who cares if the content is high-quality? or was created by gifted individuals? That is not the point. The Web is and will continue to be about enabling people, gifted or not, to create content, crappy or not, and share such content, and in the future, about the meaning of content and the interconnections between them (intelligence and semantic), and as it continues to evolve, about non-people (other sources of information) being part of this highly-social Web of today.

What blows my mind is that Jason’s definition is so relative: my crappy content might be high-quality to others; and that is the beauty of the Web.

Jason’s definition is a step back, it is an excluding path, and it just won’t happen that way. So in short, I totally disagree with Jason.

Since we are in this topic, I’ll say again what I said before on The Web x.0, past, present and future. But today I will add that “information ubiquity”, specifically delivered via the mobile handset, and physical-to-virtual world connections that extend to the Web, is going to be a big part of the next Web.

ceo

Update: I just noticed the Tim O’Reilly had written about this exact same thing, see Today’s Web 3.0 Nonsense Blogstorm.

The Web is constantly evolving. The web's major milestones are a reflection of the impact made to our society (regardless of the technologies behind it). These milestones or revolutions have been
tipping points; the moment when previously unique Web becomes common.

The first web revolution or tipping point occurred after Tim Berners-Lee introduced the web in the academic world, and the Internet and Web made it into our daily lives, changing the way we publish and consume and share information, and buy goods via our web browsers. That is Web 1.0.

Then Tim O'Reilly came up with Web 2.0, to describe the (current) phenomena centered on the concept of participation and collaboration (of content and services) and user-generated content.
But by doing so, O'Reilly skipped a whole revolution – the web (indexing and) search revolution. This is an "information accessibility" revolution. This search revolution and
tipping point is the true Web 2.0. Searching have had such a huge impact in our daily lives, and has become the preferred way to find/consume information; it is amazing what that little search box has done for us. The search revolution occurred before the time of participation/collaboration and user-generated content, and will continue impacting current and future revolutions – search is here to stay, but will evolve, as described later.

What we call Web 2.0 today should really be Web 3.0, which again is the revolution of participation and user-generated content and virtual communities (social networks).

What about future web revolutions and tipping points? I think some will be based on the following (in no particular order), and search, participation, collaboration and user-generated content will play an important role in all of them:

• Web Pervasiveness, this is true Internet/Web everywhere; this is where mobility is going shine; this is relevant information properly served, right when it is needed, on your desktop, on your handset, voice, text, multimedia. Seamless access to friends and family regardless “messaging medium”.
• Seamless Identity across the web, allowing for simple and seamless
  identification and authentication of users and thus simplified secure access to content and services across the web. As Tom wrote, seamless identity is very important for mobile. There are a lot of road-blocks to realize this; we are years away.
• Natural and Intelligent Web, where we will be able to use natural expression/language, and where based on our context and semantics, the web tools are able to suggest or find related information, where all your related information is intelligently connected allowing for smart ways to find, consume and share information and goods; some believe this is at the center of the Third Generation of the Web (but I believe it is post that). This revolution will take the longest to realize, as it requires content and tools to be semantic and natural expression-aware.

All the above will be tipping points and will change how the Internet and web will be used in our daily lives.

And what about the Mobile revolution? We are in the birth of the second revolution, triggered by the next generation of feature-rich multimedia handsets, and high-speed wireless networks, and communication transparency, and connectivity/access to Internet/web everywhere, and common methods, protocols and APIs. This also will be a tipping point from the user's perspective, and will become common. This is forward-looking and we are still 3-5+ years away from such realization. And the other
tipping points mentioned above will all be part of the mobile experience (or vice-versa).

ceo