It's incredible how technology has extensively transformed our society lately, particularly in the evolution of the Web from 1.0 to 3.0; Truly, there is no such thing as versions of the Web, just a way to help us keep track of what has been, and what currently is. The World Wide Web referred to as the "Web" for short, is the fundamental tool used to view and explore information through the internet by millions of people. It started with the basic browsers like Netscape, Mosaic, etc that only interpreted text, then appeared the HTML, making the pages more friendly and easily accessible. Taking a wild trip down memory lane with me to keep up with the fast-paced advancement of Web features is something worthwhile, so let’s go!
Web 1.0
Web 1.0 is a term used to represent the first stage of the evolution of the World Wide Web, it is the first iteration of the Web, it started from 1990 to 2004. The era of Web 1.0 was the time when the Web was being powered by HTML and CSS; the pages were static and were built using a common gateway interface (CGI) or server-side includes, and contents were served from the server file system. To be able to access the Web, you have to be a programmer or someone who knows about technology. According to Berners-Lee, Web 1.0 is a "Read-only" Web, in order words, we could only search and read information. It only had a few content creators and a large number of users that consume the contents, it brought the people from offline to online to be able to search and purchase products and services. Unfortunately, Web 1.0 couldn't strive because of its inaccessibility problem, users could not interact and contribute to the content that was created.
Web 2.0
The term Web 2.0 has been frequently used since early-2000 to mid-2000. Web 2.0 was the massive adoption age and second iteration of the Web, where innovations moved from being static to dynamic, it can also be referred to as participative or social Web because it made it possible for people to interact and collaborate in social media, it is the “Read-Write” Web. The birth of new technologies that solved the inaccessibility problem of Web 1.0 by giving room to the vast majority of people to be able to publish information with just a click of a button led us to Web 2.0.
Early Web 2.0 companies like Amazon, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, etc started coming up with easy ways to publish content and make them accessible. Web 2.0 made it possible for us to store our information in the cloud and access it from anywhere.
Web 2.0 is centralized, it uses client/server architecture. Just like the famous quote "if you're not paying for it, you are the product", Web 2.0 gave us value in exchange for our privacy, ownership of our data; the big tech companies decide what to do with our data, we have the power to write contents but we do not have the power to own our contents; they use our data for ads and generate a huge sum of money with it, while we spend money directly or indirectly to access the Web through the internet, only to be welcomed with an unsolicited ad, it sucks right! well, how about a situation where you can reap the reward of your value? exciting right! continue the trip with me, let's take a deep look into Web 3.0.
Web 3.0
Web 3.0 is a Decentralized technology powered by blockchain technology. Blockchain technology makes it possible to store data securely, bringing about a more reliable method of data integrity and checks.
The problems of Web 2.0: centralization of control, ownership of data, privacy issue led us to Web 3.0. One of the Web 3.0 evolutions is transforming the Web into a database. The 2 pillars of Web 3.0 are Artificial Intelligence (AI) which helps the computer to interpret information like humans, and semantic Web; following the explanation of Berners-Lee, Web 3.0 would be "Read-Write-Execute" Web.
According to Sandeep Nailwal, the co-founder of polygon technology, "through Web 3.0, users create the value, control the network and reap the reward". Web 3.0 returns control to users, gives users ownership of data, and allows interaction. Big tech companies like Apple, Google, Facebook, and their likes will have no control over users data because Web 3.0 is semantic Web with no middle man to control the data, it has no centralized database that stores the state of the application, unlike the Web 2.0, the backend logics have no centralized Web server, the apps run on nodes. Web 3.0 allows individual users to monetize the computer and reap the reward of their value. File sharing in Web 3.0 is done through peer-to-peer.
WEB 3.0 FEATURES COMPARED WITH WEB 2.0 AND WEB 1.0
| Web 3.0 | Web 2.0 | Web 1.0 |
|---|---|---|
| Read-Write-Execute | Read-Write | Read-only |
| Smart Applications that leverage on Artificial Intelligence | Web applications | Webforms |
| Behavioral advertising method | Interactive advertising method | Banner advertising method |
| Content is owned by the network | Content is owned and shared by the entity through a network | Content is consolidated |
| High security of data and privacy | Low security of data and privacy | No security and privacy concern |
| The semantic Web (for machine) | The community Web (For people: app/site connectivity them) | The Hypertext/GCI Web (the basics) |
| Live-streams / Waves | Blogs / Wikis | Home Pages |
I believe that we stop living once we stop thinking. As we continue to live, the advancement of the Web and its features are inevitable. Tim Berners-Lee, ‘the Web creator’ once said in one of his interviews in 1999 “people keep asking me what I think of it now that it’s done. Hence my protest: The Web is not done!”. In the same way, I believe a lot of people are currently muttering on what is next after Web 3.0; well, trust me the Web is still not done, we have Web 4.0 (the “Symbiotic Web”) just around the corner.
References:
Comparative Study of Web 1.0, Web 2.0 and Web 3.0
Web 1.0, Web 2.0 and Web 3.0 with their difference
Web 1.0 vs. Web 2.0 vs Web 3: Exploitative Fad or Promising Future?
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