The Internet has seen significant changes over the past ten years and the emergence of web 2.0 has reignited the debate about which direction the internet is going to take . To fully understand where one is going one has to look at the past .
When the internet first started making head way academics hailed it as a tool that would help researchers share information across the globe and help solve the major problems facing the world . Noble intentions I would say . Fast forward to today , trust is a major issue as well as duplicate content. When commercial interest came into the equation it became a problem and evaluate this great tool today you get all the spammers as well as the viruses ,malware as well as those stealing copyrighted material well what is this media going to do to remain relevant ? This is the biggest question one has to answer to remain relevant in the new world. I coudnt help but be impressed by the catch and mouse game search engines like google play with sites trying to rank well for keyword they really should not be ranking well for . Everyone has bumped into the empty websites at one point or the other.
Although there has been problems with the initial ethos behind the net there has been some great successes - the open source software is a good testament of that.
Web 2.0 which pioneered better interaction as well as a greater emphasis on design we just didn't have to look at information we would get involved as well . That was all well and good but at times quality suffers as a result . If you look at the fight search engines have against sites trying to rank for keywords they have no business ranking well for. Search algorithms have helped sort search terms but there is still a significant amount of sites that have little or no content of value that still rank well. So how is the internet going to retain some of the quality that is needed to retain its users in the future?
What I call the Web 3.0 . I think the automation of most processes on the internet is great but I think in web 3.0 you are going to see a more human approach to most things . Adding algorithms as well as human editing together will ensure that those playing dirty so to speak will reap little or n results hence making the internet a more friendly more relevant place to be . Look at the guys at Mahalo , they are doing a brilliant job at this and I think they are going to be the beginning of a new trend in search engines. Look at how popular social bookmarking sites have become its people realising that they cannot literally crawl through all the content online but rather recommend good quality content to each other.
About the Author:
a web designer
The future of the web
