Web3

Business jargon used to describe the next-generation of web and internet applications after Web 2.0.  As is the case with Web 2.0, this is a term that is both widely and loosely used. It is not an official phrase, title, protocol, or standard, nor is it a technology, product or company, but rather it is another new way of architecting software and services on the internet.

Originally thought of as the semantic Web, Web3 is more characteristic of ubiquitous computing (also known as "everyware") in that it marks the era of the arrival of cloud computing, specifically the thin client running against cloud-based data and services. Web 3.0 has its origins in a 2001 paper published by Tim Berners-Lee, creator of the Web in 1991, where he proposed a radically different version of the read-write Web.

Web3 encompasses these traits:

* Providing more relevance to content by relating it to location-based services - for example: GPS tagging, barcode enabled content, real-time social connections with people in specific locations via a mobile platform or social platform.

* Providing more control of our data - for example: enhanced personalization systems will wrap our personal data with various types of protection and will be shared widely, narrowly, or not at all depending on our choice, greater recommendation and ranking systems will help us figure out which data sources to take seriously and which to shun.

* Providing more meaning in our search for, and organization of, data - for example: semantic search, and "linkability web apps" that allow you to use all of your disparate desktop, server, and mobile devices and programs (including telephones, fax, instant messaging, pagers) in a single browser window on your desktop or handheld device.

* Providing an always-on, everywhere presence - for example: networks and services that follow us every step of our lives (whether or not we want it to), and more software embedded in browsers so that it doesn't require any downloading or installation on your desktop or server.

* Providing more visual and voice-based services - for example: avatar interactions in virtual worlds as a part of social networking, social shopping, and virtual reality gaming.

* Providing a decentralized platform where ownership and power are more evenly distributed - for example: technologies that enable individual owners to create digital tokens and using blockchain and cryptocurrency to give individual users co-ownership of the Internet, as with an  NFT.

Web 1.0 - the read-only Web and the first iteration of Web browsers in the 1990s. Then came Web 2.0 - the read-write Web, which includes all of the services that make it easy for users to contribute content and interact with others, like blogs and social media, along with the rise of mega platforms like Google and Facebook. Next is Web3 - the read-write-execute Web which is where users can create and execute their own digital assets, software and tools (rather than just uploading or downloading stuff to other people's sites and software). It indicates a level of ownership, as is the case with NFTs and the metaverse. 

In addition to users executing their own tools, Web3 is the evolution of Web usage and interaction which is transforming the Web into a database and a move towards making content accessible by multiple non-browser applications. For example, Web3 is every device connected to the Internet and seamlessly to itself, such as video streamed from a computer to a TV, picture frames that pull photos from an online photo-sharing account, and products recommended by friends via a website that appear on a cell phone while in a shop.

Historical perspective: As seen in The Wall Street Journal in June, 2009 "From using easy gestures to grab any piece of information from the Web to having powerful computers in the palm of your hand to being able to quickly dip into complex social networks to getting real-time information from across the globe as it happens, Web3 is an era when computing could become as integrated and invisible as electricity and just as important." By 2022 the effort to build it is driven in part with the frustration with Big Tech and its influence over online discussions and data ownership.