WEB 3.0 and the future

A few years ago I came across this expression, 'web 2.0', watched this YouTube video that I thought was carefully put together, both to appeal and to intrigue. Most people say web 2.0 is more of an expression rather than something tangible. It encompasses the collective spirit, people producing their own content through YouTube and blogging, making user interfaces accessible and improving usability; making web pages look better and connecting web surfers amongst each other.

Now, there is a new kind on the block: Web 3.0 and I cannot believe how fast things are changing. Most of the people on the globe barely have an internet connection. Hell, if you think about it, they barely have drinking water! But we are talking about Web 3.0!!! Apparently, this is also called semantic web and it puts a new vision to the test. The web starts having its own intelligence. We will not only retrieve data, but all that information will be put into a context. By connecting all aspects of our lives (e-mails, visited websites, files on PC etc), the web will be able to suggest relevant content. Now that all this information is available, the next step is to organise it and use it to our advantages.

There are also some projects that are mind blowing if you really think about it. One if them is natural language search. This search is performed in a certain language and it analyses the order of the keywords in the sentence. For example, if you enquire: 'what german philosopher wrote about moral?', the web will know Nietzsche is a philosopher and German is a nationality.

What could be the implications for this?

For one, I hate how Google's search results are never the same, depending on location and so on. I know this is supposed to be helpful and saving you loads of time, but sometimes I just want to get lost in the crowd and not have everything personalised.

Amazon's suggestions are also changed forever if you look for the most ridiculous book that you will never be interested about.

So, all this 'relevant' data that will be thrown at us will put us in a bubble that we will find it hard to get out of. Even now, having Google's results not filtered is almost impossible, even for an IT specialist. What will happen when all of our life will be like that? I don't want every little stupid thing I do on the internet to affect the way I am given information. I want to have choices, possibilities.

The internet will become this second life that you have to be careful what you say, who you say it, what you do and when because there will always be a chance that people will find out. No more freedom.

Maybe that could be a good thing. People will learn to take more responsibility for their online actions and stop hiding behind a screen and a fake nickname.