Sanders Media

That sure seems to be the case now. The web has long been an integral part of our lives. In the last couple of years, however, the web has moved beyond our computers. With that in mind, I want to talk about a new term being thrown around: Web 3.0.

Web 3.0 seems to build on 2.0’s use of “cloud services”. Since Apple released the iPhone, there have been a plethora of mobile apps that are location aware. So, rather than just accessing information from the cloud, we are seeing applications that pull information that is relevant to where a person is in the physical world. 3.0 is not just about pooling information, but about pooling relevant information.

With smartphones being the big growth market among mobile phones, a lot of software development is going into mobile platforms (Windows Mobile, Google Android, iPhone OS, etc.). This is where we are really seeing the emergence of Web 3.0. Take Yelp.com, for instance. Yelp has long been a source of user reviews and recommendations via its website. Now, with Yelp’s mobile app, you can find restaurants, hotels and entertainment right in your immediate vicinity. This is incredibly useful in a city that’s unfamiliar.

This next evolution of the web seems to be about giving the ‘net a brain. With so much information available, we need it parsed for us. These early attempts at Web 3.0 look promising.