Web 1.0, Web 2.0, Web 3.0, and... Web 4.0?

My friend informed me of the rule of thumb when labeling sites as "web 2.0":

Web 1.0: Owner creates a site
Web 2.0: Owner creates a site, but users can also create content
Web 3.0: Owner creates a site, and users can create content, but users can also create functionality

So web 2.0 would be like Blogger or YouTube. Web 3.0 would be like Facebook, with its user-created apps.

I was sharing this with a friend in Calypsos Coffee today when a third friend chimed in with some insight. I here reproduce his comments in full:

Brave New Web

Being able to create your own content on the internet is a decided feature of the so called Web 2.0. Excellent examples of this would be Myspace or Facebook. Social networking and the creation of content is the fingerprint of Web 2.0.

Also included in the inter-web upgrade is the availability of massive amounts of data via search engines. Currently Google, the dominating engine, is searching around a trillion pages, or 1,000,000,000 pages. Information, even secret information, is open to anyone willing to learn a little Boolean string logic.

Web 3.0 has two parts. Functionality and data. When users have the ability to interact with customizable modules that would be called Web 3.0 functionality. Facebook Apps are a great example because users can customize the modules effect on the page.

The data side is being able to easily access pertinent information that is exactly relevant to your needs. This is crudely available with Boolean searching in Google already. The next step is for information to be mined to exactly your needs. Right now if you type anything into Google there is a high probability of getting 40 bajillion hits. With variable algorithms that extract data based on the user you can get exactly what you look for.

Web 4.0 is an extension of the data developing where information is assimilated off of existing user created information to fill gaps in content. I suspect this will be triggered when a user searches for an answer to a question. The engine will scan available information, rank the trustworthiness (much like PageRank), and create an answer based on all the information.

Someday choosing a President will be as simple as asking Google.

Scary?

Perhaps.

(TJ Kastning, Sept. 2, 2008)