What is Web 3.0?

Summary:

• Web 1.0, the early form of internet, was the first and most reputable web in the 1990s. The information web 1.0 offered was limited, with little to no user communication and interaction.
• The Social Web, or Web 2.0, made the web more interactive - thanks to developments in technologies like Javascript, HTML5, CSS3 and so on, which made it possible to develop interactive platforms such as YouTube, Facebook, Wikipedia and more.
• Web 3.0 is an idea and no one company or individual owns it. It will not be a bunch of life-changing stuff all at once. It'll likely be a series of ideas that grow together. We know that it will develop with peer-to-peer networks - the starting points behind blockchain and cryptocurrency technology.
• We can expect to see a symbiotic partnership amongst these three technologies (p2p networks, blockchain, and crypto). They will be interoperable, automated via smart contracts, and used to power anything from miniature deals for jpegs, to censorship-resistant P2P information storage and sharing applications. The present slew of decentralized finance protocols is simply the tip of the iceberg.
• Web 3.0, in short, is the upcoming third generation of the internet where web sites and applications will refine info in a smart human-like way with innovations like artificial intelligence (AI/ML), Big Data, and decentralized finance (DeFi).

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In this blog post, we are going to explain what web 3.0 is, how cryptocurrency ideas tie into the evolution of our current world wide web, and what it means for you as a user.

Before starting, we would like to clarify that there’s no strict definition of web 3.0 - as the field is still new and evolving every day. Instead, we will go through a rough definition of what the internet says web 1.0 is, what many people are saying web 2.0 is, and then explain this recent phenomenon of decentralized internet that a lot of internet users are calling web 3.0.

Web's evolution

Web 1.0 (1989-2005)

Web 1.0, the early form of internet, was the first and most reputable web in the 1990s. The information web 1.0 offered was limited, with little to no user communication and interaction. When the internet started, creating individual pages, or even commenting on write-ups weren't a thing. The internet connection was slow, and the web comprised mostly a bunch of static internet pages, meaning that whenever you loaded them, they just showed some stuff and that was it. Some called it read-only internet, as there wasn't any logging in or interacting with posts or viewing analytics.

Most of the early internet wasn't even profitable - there were no ads and monetization opportunities. It was mostly just like one big Wikipedia; all hyperlinked together. However, during this time, the users of the internet were consumers. The users went to the internet to consume information.

Web 1.0 didn't have algorithms to sort and rank web pages, which made it extremely hard for individuals to discover relevant information. It was like a one-way freeway with a slim footpath where web content development was done by a few people, and info came primarily from directories.

Web 2.0 (2005-present)

The Social Web, or Web 2.0, made the web a great deal much more interactive - thanks to developments in internet modern technologies like Javascript, HTML5, CSS3 and so on, which made it possible to develop interactive internet platforms such as YouTube, Facebook, Wikipedia and a lot more.

The new technologies and improvements in internet bandwidth led the way for online shopping, social media networks and user-generated web content to grow. With web 2.0, it became possible to distribute data and share between different platforms and applications.

The web pages became interactive - not only did we get information from pages, but the web pages started getting information from us as we viewed Facebook, YouTube, and performed Google searches with these web technologies.

The large corporations which owned the platforms like Facebook, Google, LinkedIn started collecting data about us so that they could serve us better content, which would make us stay on their websites longer. This meant more money for them from the data collected and, eventually, they realized they could package up all the data they had collected on us and sell it to advertisers. Web 2.0 marks the age of central authority, targeted advertising, and the lack of privacy for its users. Now, to be fair, we willingly gave up this privacy for cool apps like Facebook and Twitter.

You and we could view facebook.com and see two very different news feeds. The difference is because the page depended on who was viewing it, which is an important note for a difference in web 3.0 that we'll talk about later.

When you browse your feed, the content you see is based on the information the company collected from your activity – likes, shares, views, etc. The ads shown to you were targeted based on the data you willingly or unknowingly gave the large corporations.

There was even one article that said they showed a guy parenting ads – that’s how he knew he was going to be a father. It was probably because his girlfriend used their public IP address to search on symptoms, and the machine learning algorithm picked up the behaviour to show targeted ads.

Whatever the case, as the race for data intensifies, the story becomes scary.

Web 3.0 (yet to find)

Web 3.0 is the next stage of the web advancement. Web 3.0 will certainly be born out of a natural evolution of older-generation web tools combined with advanced innovations like AI and blockchain.

Web 3.0 predominantly uses blockchain technology and the tools of distribution and decentralization on web 2.0. In the past, you were the product as you were browsing social networks, but in decentralized web, some believe that you will be the owner of your content. At the very least, you will have much more control over your data and the companies will reward/compensate for your contribution.

Let’s look at a few examples of how it might work. Odyssey is a blockchain alternative to YouTube. In Odyssey, any user can post videos. Unlike YouTube, in Odyssey, they cannot stop users from uploading a video. If someone else in the network wants to share it, they cannot be stopped too. Technically, the video lives in a distributed network - kind of like a big torrent network.

A Facebook equivalent would be a service where your posts cannot be taken down. This is because your post wouldn't just be on one of Facebook's servers. It would theoretically be on 1000s of computers around the world ensuring that the social network you're on is not attacked or censored.

The flip side is there would be a lot of illegal and hateful things posted in the name of freedom. But the users of the networks could probably decide on a system to reduce that harmful content. Experts say that we will reach the point of the Internet where every company is ran by a decentralized group called a DAO, which stands for decentralized autonomous organization.

In a DAOs there won't be CEOs or presidents to impress. Users who are part of the network collectively work for the benefit of the network. Those with the tokens (or variants to determine voting rights) get to vote on how the company/platform changes. This means one controlling authority cannot shut it down. It will be like a large democracy at work.

Last, one of the biggest things on web 3.0 is that your digital identity is not 100% connected to your real-world identity. This means I can view pages, download things, make purchases, and any other activity on the internet without being traced to the real me. Now there are many ways we can anonymize ourselves online.

These may be long-term ideas of those who think about Web 3.0. In the next decade, you might buy Amazon gift cards using MetaMask and pay with Ethereum or that you can anonymously leave a like on one of your friends’ posts using one of your hidden wallets.

Web 3.0 is an idea and no one company or individual owns it. It will not be a bunch of life-changing stuff all at once. It'll likely be a series of ideas that grow together.

Web 3.0, Cryptocurrency, and Blockchain

Web 3.0 networks will operate with peer-to-peer networks - the starting blocks of blockchain and cryptocurrency technology. We can expect to see a symbiotic partnership amongst these three technologies. They will be interoperable, seamlessly integrated, automated via smart contracts and used to power anything from mini deals in Africa, censorship-resistant P2P information documents storage, and sharing with applications. This will change things for the future. The present slew of DeFi protocols is simply the tip of the iceberg.

Web 3.0, in short, is the upcoming third generation of the internet where web sites and applications will refine info in a smart human-like way with innovations like artificial intelligence (AI/ML), Big Data, and decentralized finance (DeFi).

The Web 3.0 definition can be extended to: data will be interconnected in a decentralized means, which would be a huge jump ahead to our present generation of the net (Web 2.0), where data is mainly kept in centralized repositories.

Customers and creators will engage with data. But also, for this to take place, programs need to comprehend information both conceptually and contextually. The foundations of Web 3.0 will be based on semantic internet and expert systems (AI).

Key Features of Web 3.0 and applications

To really understand the next stage of the internet, we require looking at the key features of Web 3.0:

Ubiquity

Ubiquity shows being or having the capacity to be anywhere, especially at the same time. Simply put, omnipresent. Web 2.0 is already ubiquitous considering that, for example, a Facebook customer can quickly record a picture and share it, which then becomes common given that it's offered to any person no matter where they are, if they have accessibility to the social media platform.

Universality

Web 3.0 makes the internet accessible to everyone, anywhere, at any moment. In the future, internet-connected gadgets will change, since IoT (Web of Things) technology will certainly generate a variety of new types of clever devices.

Semantic Internet

Semantic is the research of the relationship between words. For that reason, the Semantic Internet, according to Berners-Lee, makes it possible for computer systems to evaluate lots of information from the Internet, which includes content, purchases, and web links in between persons.

A common demand for a Web 3.0 application is the capability to digest large-scale information and turn it into accurate expertise and valuable user interaction. The semantic applications are still at their onset, which implies that they have a great deal of space for innovation.

Closing Thoughts

The new internet will certainly provide a more personal and customized surfing experience, a lot smarter and lot more human-like. It will also bring in an equitable internet as decentralization takes precedence. The individual customers will become a sovereign over their data.

Web 3.0 will certainly arrive - taking into consideration exactly how smart tools have already changed our behavior patterns. The internet will end up being tremendously extra integrated in our day-to-days live.

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