Spotting Trends: Where is the World Wide Web Headed?

Posted June 25th, 2007 by admin

Web 1.0 was the ‘static’ web, where one could merely READ online content from all over the world. With the advent of Web 2.0, users can now READ and WRITE (i.e. publish) their own content for others to see and discuss. Many have already announced the arrival of Web 3.0 and are anticipating Web 4.0. Here’s a little daydreaming, brainstorming and ‘googling’ I did about where the web is going. Please feel free to add your views and insights.

• The 3D Web. Second Life (SL) made popular a whole new dimension on the Internet. The whole computing technology is headed toward 3-dimensioning everything. What we now know as the Desktop, will be replaced with a whole 3D “Office” which we can navigate much like in SL. We will have the files and folders in drawers that we can customize and design to our taste (or lack of it!). Techniques like the recently announced Microsoft Surface will add more actual physical movement to enhance the 3D experience. Holograms are not that far either.

• Faster, Better Browsing. Even web browsing is going 3D. The trends we can spot on the Net are creating browsers that recognize more than just keywords.

• More Customization. We can easily spot the trend of customizing everything: from iGoogle, through Facebook applications, to mashups - the Internet is one big buffet of widgets. Soon enough, we’ll be able to build our own software too, even if we know nothing about programming. As consumers, we will control what we want to see, how we want to see it and who we want to talk to about it.

• Anytime, Anyplace, and for Free? We will have Internet access from pretty much anywhere. That is almost certain. WiMAX is very close to being a reality today and before we know it we will be able to use every spare second connected to the Web. Will Internet access ever become free? Maybe not. Cheaper – for sure. But its omnipresence means that people will rely on the Internet as their primary source of information in much greater numbers. Moreover, projects like One Laptop per Child will make the use of computers available even in the underdeveloped regions of the world.

• Online Alter Ego. What started as a ‘nickname’ in a chat-room, or an anonymous e-mail address, now is a profile on the social networking sites and soon will turn into a whole persona. A single unique identification will ease navigate through all profiles and customized content (an early example of this is OpenID). The persona will live, work and thrive online.

• Regulation. Yes, the Internet is facing many problems in terms of regulation. But as the anonymous dimension of participating on the web is being eradicated, the fact that the web is not a world without consequences will kick in. In fact, the trend has already gone into the other extreme and caused a lot of controversy with maps and web cameras everywhere. While privacy is a hot issue, our tolerance to having our every moment exposed to the public has increased dramatically in the last few years. Now it’s almost standard to have your image up on the web for others to see. Copyright is another burning issue that will need to be addressed in this line.

• So how will marketing follow? In his new book, Marketing to the Social Web, Larry Weber argues that “the Web is rapidly becoming the most important marketing medium.” The Internet is growing where television fails –in bringing people together, Weber, a social media guru and my employer, adds. In fact, most TV ads now include an invitation to visit a web site.

• Marketing in the new World Wide Web will only work as a dialogue, and only under the consumer’s terms. The book is a comprehensive guide for marketers and how they need to “communicate with customers, rather than at them,” a must-read for anyone who plans to stick around during the next stage of the Web.

Entry Filed under: Social Networking, Digital Content, Social Media Marketing, Web 2.0