The Web Evolution and The Web Data Revolution

- The Evolution of World Wide Web

The World Wide Web was invented at CERN in 1989 by Sir Tim Berners-Lee, and in 1993 CERN placed the World Wide Web software in the public domain. During this time, the Web and its applications have become widely used around the world, and many new technologies have emerged. The growth of the Web has benefited both from tremendous scientific advances and from the anecdotal events that helped to build the Web as we know it today.

It took over 10 years to transition from the original web, Web 1.0, to Web 2.0, and it is expected to take just as long, if not longer, to fully implement and reshape the web with Web 3.0. 

If the trend of change is traced from Web 1.0, a static information provider where people read websites but rarely interacted with them, to Web 2.0, an interactive and social web enabling collaboration between users, then it can be assumed that Web 3.0 will change both how websites are made and how people interact with them. 

With Web 3.0 as the mainstream, the grasp of power will dissipate from the hands of a few powerful Web 2.0 companies, returning power to the people. In Web 3.0, users will have an ownership share of platforms and applications compared to today when tech giants dominate platforms.

- The Differences between Web 2.0 and Web 3.0

Web 2.0 and Web 3.0 represent successive advanced iterations of the original Web 1.0 of the 1990s and early 2000s. Web 2.0 is the current version of the web we are all familiar with, and Web 3.0 represents its next phase, which will be decentralized, open, and more functional.

Innovations such as smartphones, mobile internet access, and social networking have driven the exponential growth of Web 2.0. Web 2.0 disrupted industries that failed to integrate new web-based business models. The defining characteristics of Web 3.0 include decentralization; trustless and permissionless; artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning; and connectivity and ubiquity.

Web 2.0 is based on user interaction, while Web 3.0 will be based on user interaction and immersion. Web 2.0 was primarily about social media and information sharing, while Web 3.0 will be more interactive, allowing users to interact with each other and their environment in real-time

- Web 2.0

Web 2.0 evolved from the 2004/2005 transition, and it was all about providing "read and write" user interactions. Websites become social networks where people can share their thoughts and ideas. Blogs, forums, wikis became popular, where people wrote and posted their ideas. Having arrived, the internet is now a place where people can come together to discuss and collaborate on projects. 

Web 2.0 is web sites and applications that consume user-generated content for end users. Web 2.0 is characterized by greater user interactivity and collaboration, more pervasive network connectivity, and enhanced communication channels. 

One of the most striking differences between Web 2.0 and the traditional World Wide Web (WWW, retroactively known as Web 1.0) is the closer collaboration between Internet users, content providers, and businesses. Initially, the data was posted on a website and users simply viewed or downloaded the content. Increasingly, users are more invested in the nature and scope of web content and, in some cases, have real-time control over it.

The social nature of Web 2.0 is another major difference between it and the original static Web. More and more websites support community-based input, interaction, content sharing, and collaboration. Types of social media sites and applications include forums, tweets, social networks, social bookmarking, social curation, and wikis. 

- Web 3.0

The advent of Web 3.0 allows for more interactions than just a place where people share information on the Internet. Web 3.0, or the Semantic Web, is an ecosystem that allows users to become active participants, interacting with applications privately and securely through a decentralized platform. This enables users to experience freedom, ownership, and most importantly, autonomy to create personalized and personalized journeys.

The vast majority of designers and builders will use cutting-edge tools, integrate into autonomous organizations, and participate in this new economy. Decentralized Autonomous Organizations are the guiding principle of Web 3.0. (DAO). With Web 3.0, users will be able to manage their data on a decentralized, fair Internet. This would get rid of the high rents charged by the big platforms and free people from the fundamentally wrong monetization of the ad-based user-generated data paradigm that has defined the current digital economy.

The current architecture has front-end, middle-tier, and back-end, and from a technical point of view, needs to be modified for Web 3.0. Backend solutions will be required for processing the blockchain, persisting and indexing data in the blockchain, peer-to-peer interactions, and other tasks. Likewise, the middle tier also needs to use the blockchain to manage the backend, also known as the business rules tier.

- The Web Data Revolution

User data and the internet companies that monetize that data are transforming the global economy. As a recent article in Harvard Business Review observed, platform companies such as Facebook, Google, and Twitter do not dominate a single industry, but use "competitive bottlenecks" to aggregate and collect users' personal data. By acting as gatekeepers across a range of industries, these internet giants now tax and mediate value creation in the digital economy. 

Fortunately, the story of the internet didn't end there. In addition to the innovation bottleneck created by entrenched data monopolies, new tools have emerged around Web 3.0 that allow people to own their data. Web 1.0 introduced a new global digital consumption platform, Web 2.0 enabled social networking and user-driven feedback, and Web 3.0 represented the rise of distributed "smart" networks rooted in blockchain technology.

[More to come ...]