Could We Really Have a “Web 3.0”?

The buzzword of the past few years, used to describe the type of web that we know today – a web dominated by social websites and user-generated content – was “Web 2.0”. It seemed adequate in distinguishing this “iteration” of the web, encompassing the technologies, web standards and philosophies guiding a more connected web.

But the question remains: could we have a “Web 3.0”? And if so, what exactly would this type of web be?

It seems at present that what we have is working rather well for us. This generation of the web has connected our society in unparalleled ways. We can look to Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and we see this happening on a constant basis. We see a constant stream of thought blasting through cyberspace from millions of voices across our planet. We see a web built not of websites, but of platforms: systems of communication that are far from what existed a mere ten or twenty years ago.

So would a Web 3.0 be something that builds upon the platforms created in this generation, or is it going to be something more radical? Perhaps a “3D” web for a generation that most tech companies and film studios think can only be sated by eye-sore pseudo-holographic imagery?

Or is this next version of our web going to be something a lot more subtle, a quiet transcendence of the web as we know it into a web that connects not only people with each other, but technology with the physical world?

In some ways I don’t think we can even classify the web using numerical iterators. The web is really becoming a lot more organic in its nature, a lot more flexible to the changing tides of our volatile civlisation. However, I am still curious and excited to see what the web of tomorrow will bring.