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In 2007, Cade Metz of PCMag.com wrote an article title Web 3.0 where he set the stage for the next version of the world wide web.  Cade pointed out that three years earlier web 2.0 was offered up as a term by Dale Dougherty at O’Reilly Media and that Web 2.0 was what was used to describe as “almost any website, service, or technology that promoted sharing and collaboration right down to the Net’s grass roots.”  The key difference between Web 1.0 and Web 2.0 was “collaboration.”  Collaboration meant that the web had turned from a linear, one to many way monologue to a many to many two way dialog.  This was huge. Web 1.0 had many of these types of services, like chat rooms, but it wasn’t core to the service.  Social Media, Video services, Picture Services were born out of this evolution.  Some were earlier and some were later.

Today, in 2010, I think we can again look back 3 years ago to a point in time that defined web 3.0. I am writing about this because of a post by Fred Wilson today which was an offshoot of an article from Wired Magazine called “Is the web dead? a Debate.”  I think you should read both.  The interesting thing to me in this is the difference between the Internet and the Web. As I wrote in a comment on AVC, the Web is defined loosly as “a system of interlinked hypertext documents accessed via the Internet.”  The Internet is the physical layer, packets, switches, etc; the web is made up of the services, content, and information.  The article in Wired is a debate between Chris Anderson and Bill O’Reilly.  They go back and forth about new names for where we are today such as Internet Operating System, apps taking over websites, “Walled Gardens,” and the debate over open vs closed networks.  While all of these points are great and important to understand, they are not new.  AOL was a closed network.  AOL was the first Facebook.  AOL was the first search engine.  AOL invented “Keyword.”  That was all done by 1995.  ”You’ve got mail!” … did you get the T Shirt?

So, back to what happened 3 years ago.  On Jan 7, 2007, Steve Jobs said that Apple was going to reinvent the phone.  They didn’t.  What they did was they invented Web 3.0.  The iphone was the spark that has created a Multi Channel Web experience.  Users were able to take their desktop experience and leave the office.   They were able to take email, chat, the browser, maps, … everything digital.  They enabled any website to offer their service on multiple channels / devices / services etc.  This is Web 3.0.

• Web 1.0 was a one to many monologue on a website
• Web 2.0 was a many to many dialog on a website
• Web 3.0 is a many to many dialog on the device or service the user wants to have the dialog, the  ”Multi Channel Web Experience”

What do you think?