Tying Web 3.0, the Semantic Web and Linked Data Together --- Part 1/3: Web 3.0 Will Not Solve Information Overload

Over the past few weeks I have tried to dig deeper into the different concepts of semantic web, linked data, and web 3.0, to develop a better understanding of whether it matters, why, and what it all means from a web user angle. That led me to review recent articles in Nodalities magazine, attend discussions on Taxonomies, and talk to new startups. The Web 3.0 and Semantic Conferences are coming up and I thought that would also help me not to look too idiotic at the "Idiots’ Guide to the Semantic Web and Web 3.0" panel I’ll be participating in.........

One of the focuses of my quest was to try and assess whether, as Tim Berners-Lee put it over a year ago in an interview by Paul Miller, the Semantic Web is “open for business”. Another related goal was to try and compare the cost and benefits of Linked Data, an important component of the Semantic Web as most would agree (where people differ is whether it is a requisite or not). I’ll tackle that across this series of posts.

Now, I know there have been many attempts to define the terms Semantic Web, Linked Data, and Web 3.0, a few of which I have been a part of. I think all of those are worthwhile, especially when they get more people interested in the subject (thereby increasing our collective ability to shape and define those terms in a virtuous loop!). In my eyes of technology pollinizer for businesses and evangelist for the smarter web we all aspire to, the best definitions are the simplest ones. And it’s always worth clarifying what we mean by those terms prior to talking extensively about them. So here is yet another crack at it, one that is intended to point out new paths for reflection and discussion.

Broadly speaking, some think Web 3.0 = Semantic Web = Linked Data, and others think those concepts are more like Russian Dolls. Ah, those Russians… they always have to mess things up…

Well, I guess I must be a little Russian, so here it goes, from general to more particular, attempts at defining Web 3.0, Semantic Web, and Linked Data, how they all fit together and what they are about:

Web 3.0

I took a crack at defining this last year prior to the web 3.0 conference in this post (obviously, the ironical title was intended to point out that this would likely be work-in-progress for a long time to come!), which I invite you to read. My take on it tends to be broader than web 3.0 as almost a synonym for the semantic web. Although I agree about the game-changing aspect of a more atomic web in which machines can interpret and link information at a more granular level, it’s doubtful that this alone will drive the web 3.0 transformation. High-speed mobile and localization technologies such as 3G and HSDPA, cheap GPS sensors and GPRS, data recognition and conversion technologies such as voice or image pattern recognition, and cloud computing, are all game-changing as well, and together they will help define the web for the 3-5 years to come.

I hope that “Smarter” is going to be a key tag for the Web 3.0, and yet I think “More Open, More Ubiquitous, with even More Information (Overload) and a little Smarter” is what it’s really going to be. We’ll have to wait till “Web 4.0” for a web that really is stepwise more intelligent, one that could really be called semantic and hold the hidden promises of a “Semantic Web”. And the reason I believe this is that the community is focused on linking more stuff together in new ways and breaking down data siloes, much more than it is focused on creating new, smarter filters for all the data that’s going to be made accessible that way.

This is partially due to the sequence of things to be done to enable a smart web – or perceived as needed to be done (as I suggested previously, the debate is open on Linked Data): first, create and disseminate a working standard to model data at a more granular level. That’s what Linked Data is trying to do. It has gathered a lot of traction and is moving fast towards increasing adoption, but I am convinced it requires a few more years to become really mature and perform at the level required for true mainstream adoption.

I am only guessing, but it looks like it may also be partially due to the superior attraction of the IT community for aggregation and integration as opposed to filtering, analyzing and transforming data. For one thing, aggregating different sources is easier than developing advanced algorithms to, say, process unstructured data. We are already seeing the result of that everywhere, in what is hard to describe without using the word ‘messy’: Facebook status on Twitter and vice-versa, Wordpress blog updates on LinkedIn, Twitter-on-Twine and Twine-on-Twitter, Plaxo-on-that, RSS-on-this, and it’s all becoming a big soup as each app shows what each other app is doing and differentiation lines are blurring. This looks like a lose-lose competitive war in which every app tries to establish itself as the unique platform and does nothing well anymore as a result.

Is that really how the Web experience is supposed to feel? (Image via Wikipedia)

Following less than 150 persons on Twitter, I already have a hard time keeping up. The most successful tool? TweetDeck. Why? Because it gives you a dashboard that allows you to filter things. And yet by all accounts, Tweetdeck lags behind our filtering needs. Twitter is in the best position to improve its interface and allow more powerful filtering soon, but if it doesn’t, I predict that an app like an improved Tweetdeck, i.e. a better filter, will steal its limelight. Just like Google became the doorman to the web because it filtered things better than others. Filtering, not aggregating, is where the money is. Not more, just smarter.

I’m sure many will disagree with that view, but I persist and sign: unfortunately, Web 3.0 is not going to solve information overload. At least not until it graduates into its next avatar. Things are going to get worse before they get better… But better they will get. And since the Web x.0 series is starting to sound a little tired, if it wasn’t to start with, I’d suggest calling that smarter, post-web 3.0 web, “Da Web”. Much better sounding already, don't you think?

(this post continues in part 2, to be published on Monday 11, and part 3, on Wednesday 13)

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