Webolution
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Publisher,
Consumer, Creator/Collaborator, Integrator, ?
The World Wide Web (WWW/W3) or simply Web and its off springs Web 1.0, 2.0, 3.0 and beyond, simply represent different time periods in the evolution of the web (webolution) when it comes to Internet technology and the how and why it is used. First, it's important to understand what is meant by the term Semantic Web as "collective intelligence". Here is the best official definition of Web 3.0 you can imagine. To appreciate all of this see Twine and FOAF Project. Note LAMP refers to a solution stack of software, usually free and open source.
WWW/Web and Web 1.0 are the periods that followed the Gopher/Lynx time period and took place during the early days of the Internet. Back then the primary use of the Internet was taking print media and posting it online; in other words, publishing and distributing information as soon as possible by a select few. Today publishing is almost instant and is done by everyone, so-to-speak. Web 1.0 saw books, news, music and everything else being moved into a digital format up onto the World Wide Web. This type of web activity is still going on and will probably never cease. This is because new data is constantly being generated and hence there is a need to make it available to the world immediately. Hence, the goal is to publish it. Today, the majority of the Internet (Cloud Computing) community is beginning to move more and more toward creativity/collaboration as well as data and application integration.
Teaching-Learning Alphabet TODAY
Web 2.0 is the current Web iteration. After the online data posting period during the Web/Web 1.0 movement, the online community began to look for ways to share and collaborate with all of this data. Web 2.0 is a term describing changing trends in the use of World Wide Web technology and web design that aims to enhance creativity and provide for secure information sharing, collaboration and functionality of the web. We have moved from the world of Web 1.0 consumers to one that is made up of Web 2.0 creators/collaborators for business, education and social circles. Thousands of Web 2.0 sites now exist all over the Internet with different approaches and applications. The magnificent mind’s eye is the only limit here. Two of the most popular applications currently involve the idea of social networking. They are:
Facebook
Web 2.0 Social Networking Site
Ning Web 2.0 Social Networking Site
Facebook and Ning use the concept of a social networking to create a community or learning network for business, education and fun. Each community member is responsible for contributing information to the rest of the users. Currently, social networking is the most popular approach and, in this regard, we appear to be moving away from a text-based sharing/collaborating means of communication (blogosphere) to an image-, audio- and/or video-based means of communication (audio/videosphere). Indeed, the vernacular appears to be changing in our culture and education. Another prominent approach is the development and utilization of web services. The majority of Web 2.0 sites have a web service running in the background. These services allow you to integrate data between sites through API’s (Application Programming Interface). Consequently, many of the Web 2.0 sites provide a convenient portal for Personal/Professional Development (PD) and Learning (PLN).
Web 2.0 Personal & Professional Learning Network (PD/PLN)
Poll: Which Web 2.0 Tools do you use for your PD/PLN?
A day in the life of my Personal/Professional Development (PD)/Learning Network (PLN)...
It begins with 
goes to 
then goes to 
and finally ends like 
.
These images represent what my homepage links look like when I begin my day, then by late morning/mid-afternoon and finally evening. I start my day with a cleared fresh cache of my PLN desktop homepage file (green links); first, I take care of my personal stuff. Then I progress through my PD/PLN links for the rest of day (red vlinks). I then clear my cache at the end of day. Now, I'm ready to begin all over again the next day. This is what my PLN, now called a Personal Learning Environment (PLE), looks like today using MindMeister to develop a Mindmap workflow schema.
I have private groups/cliques/channels with clients/learners all over the world. This is where we learn, share, and collaborate together, conveniently and cheaply I might add. One click no travel!
Conclusion
So, what is next? It is difficult to describe what Web 3.0 (and beyond) will be; you can make predictions but you cannot define it absolutely because it is something that isn’t. The Web, as we know it today, continues to evolve; so, what lies beyond? We appear to be moving more and more toward the integration of data and the various Web 2.0 applications. We see it happening each day when we open our RSS/Aggregator. Now that the data is published online, thanks to Web 1.0, and sites can share data through API’s and social networks, thanks to Web 2.0; the next obvious direction is to integrate this massive amount of data that we create together on a daily basis. The days of the smoked filled newsroom with just a few reporters are gone as are the small number of publishers; the e-world of reporters, editors and large numbers of publishers (creators) is here to stay.
A common way of describing this is to refer to the Internet as a platform. With Web 3.0 applications we will see the data being integrated and applying it into innovative ways that were never before possible. Imagine taking information from one site, integrating it with data from another site and another and another… and then building a site that would define your personal and professional purpose/experience based on these combinations. This is indeed EVOLUTION at its best along with SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST. An illustration would be for us to place a series of dots representing all the sites (nodes) on the Internet as we know it today and then connect each of these with lines. Next, we place our new site (node) somewhere in this aggregate and draw lines from the relational nodes to the one we just created. The Web is a continuum, ever growing and evolving! The consumption, creation, integration and presentation of information is what Web 3.0 will potentially be and from which we will learn and develop as a result.
To attempt to define the Web beyond 3.0 is just not practical. We certainly are aware that technology alone is not what defines; it will be technology coupled with the combined creativity and imagination of use by the global web community that will determine what is beyond Web 3.0. In 1997, I said and wrote that "The Web is not the future, but a dynamic part of today."; the same still holds for Web 2.0 and beyond. It's an evolution not a revolution. It's time to STOP strategic planning and START strategic doing by adopting, learning, sharing and collaborating with each other. I wake up each morning looking forward to meeting my Professional Development (PD) and Personal/Professional Learning Network (PLN) friends in order to achieve my Teaching-Learning & Technology Goals.
Therefore, I leave you with one word to describe each of the webolution phases; namely, Web Birth (WWW/Web) - PUBLISHER, Web 1.0 - CONSUMER, Web 2.0 - CREATOR/COLLABORATOR, Web 3.0 - INTEGRATOR and Beyond - ?. What one word would you use to describe each of these phases?
