Who is already capitalizing on Web 3.0?

As we started discovering what Web 3.0 meant and what the “Internet of things” means, we couldn’t help to wonder how this can be applied within a Business context? Or who is actually profiting from this new developments? Our research took us all over the Web… Well, not entirely but it certainly felt like it! Finally, we came across an interesting product by IBM called “MesssageSight”.  According to IBM, MessageSight “a full featured messaging appliance specifically designed for machine to machine (m2m) and mobile environments. Optimized for message throughput, MessageSight extends messaging networks outside the datacenter, scaling to handle concurrent connectivity between a multitude of devices and applications with predictable latency.”

You can checkout more on the product description at http://www-03.ibm.com/software/products/us/en/messagesight/
 

But lets take a look at what other bloggers/industry specialists are saying about the product. InfoWorld offers a very optimistic perspective when it says that MessageSight will help “orchestrate the “Internet of things””. However, I personally agree more with what CMS says in their review in which the consider MessageSight as a “cornerstone of Mobile “Internet of things””. The key word here is MOBILE. 

Just like CMS and considering the decline in the PC market and the growth of the Mobile device market (Smart phones and tablets), I too believe that in the future the vast majority of data created will come from Mobile devices. Hence, IBM MessageSight will not “orchestrate” the “Internet of things” but instead act as key component of the suite of solutions that companies will incorporate to master Web 3.0. 

Finally, our opinion has been confirmed by IBM as it has created the MobileFirst portfolio of solutions and MessageSight is just one of the key components of it. 

So remember this: MessageSight is an awesome tool but it is not the answer to mastering Web 3.0. The “Internet of things” is just getting started, don’t try to master it without knowing what it is exactly yet…

The Futuristic Classroom

Some of the ways in which web 3.0 shapes future education are:

1.  Visit different places of world virtually and get more information about those places in a safe and economical way.
2. Increase student collaborative activities by scheduling meeting of them virtually through social networking sites and forums.
3. Assess student activities and learning through online projects and online learning courses
4. Create 3D based scenarios and simulations with the help of High quality graphics 3D internet applications imparted by web3.0.

                                    Source:TechBytes.com

Web 3.0 is more than a group of new technologies and services. Web 3.0 technologies provide a collection of services to create a true online classroom. Here are some of the Web 3.0 tools and services which are helpful in the education and research:

1. Learning with 3D-Wikis / Virtual 3D Encyclopaedia:

Wiki is used mainly to maintain and construct a repository of information and material. Students and researchers are able to work collaboratively and post big items. User-friendliness of the wiki software creates easy handling of the matter for an editor for deleting, reverting and modifying the information. With the development of 3D web, researchers & technocrats have been creating and modifying new projects to give a new aspect to the world of Wikis & encyclopedia.

2. Learning with 3D - Virtual Worlds & Avatars, Virtual Labs etc:

3D Virtual worlds & Avatars has a great role in e-learning, through role playing, 3-D models, simulations and engaging students through stimulating creativity. 3D rich graphic based user interfaces provide a more powerful platform for students for participating and performing collaborative actions and to receive & exchange information.

3. Intelligent Search Engines/ Collaborative Intelligent Filtering:

These search engines offer the effective source of information by offering the useful information on the click of a button. Now, one can even search with the help of images, audio and videos, in addition to text. Imagine having your phone camera pointing to a building and your phone will automatically filter similar buildings and will give you all the relevant information. 

I believe that the future of education in web 3.0 will lay in the hands of the teachers whose role will change from teaching to orchestrating and filtering the tools avaliable to them to allow students to reach their potential, sky will become the limit.... Imagine a techer walking into class and having her students relive parts of the civil war through virtual 3-D? or learn more about the marine life by having a virtual class underwater?

Facebook: The Social Disenfranchisement Network?

Jaron Lanier's You Are Not a Gadget is a common topic of debate among our blog contributors. Here's my take! While Lanier’s book may seem like an elaborate rant, it isn’t without merit. Being devoid of neutrality, his bias is fascinating. Reading through Not a Gadget is akin to watching a typical I-just-woke-up-out-of-cryo scene from of a sci-fi thriller. He frustratingly sputters vexations, displaying little control of his motor functions. But in the course of reading this book, it becomes evident that Lanier has real merit. Kind of like how that de-cryo’d guy from the sci-fi movie who in an earlier scene seemed helplessly frustrated, is then shown as intriguingly pacific wrapped in a blanket in a modified thinker pose staring off into the distance and recounting the lost world he knew before going into cryo; a genteel savant recounting the lost and somehow purer ideology of old. 

Okay fine not genteel,

Jaron Lanier

but you get the point.

This effect becomes apparent in his comparison of Facebook with the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965, specifically its contemporary reauthorization,  “No Child Left Behind.” He argues that “what computerized analysis of all the country’s school tests has done to education is exactly what Facebook has done to friendships,” asserting that Facebook has turned life into a database the same way current education legislation has resulted in standardized testing that turns learning into a database. 

Regarding Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, Instagram, Pinterest, etc. etc., I must admit that I’ve always had a nagging feeling of “do I really need this stuff?” Not having a Facebook account is almost taboo in my community, even more so regarding LinkedIn. While reading Lanier’s Not a Gadget, I felt a little like the dynamic character in the sci-fi movie who, while not swayed by the de-cryo’d guy protagonist, senses the accuracy of that nagging “something’s wrong here.” Not a Gadget isn’t right or wrong; it’s thought provoking. Highly recommended.

http://www.amazon.com/review/R3935WHS8O28XG/ref=cm_cr_rdp_perm

Failure of the Web 2.0

A couple of days ago, a friend of mine shared with me a book written by Jaron Lanier. At first I just wondered who is Mr. Lanier and why he criticizes Web 2.0 so harshly. Well, after a couple hours of research I found out that this well-respected computer science expert makes some intriguing assertions that I believe are worth sharing.

In his book, he widely discusses the role of humans in the Internet and digital technologies, and how it impacts negatively. For that, he develop his thesis, based on the following three points:

• Individuality: His argument relies on the way the Internet is being developed, with tons of information but produced and shared by copycats, putting aside original ideas, which is reflected for him in nonpersons–automatons or numb mobs. 

• Anonymity: He criticizes the fact that any worked done collectively, either through crowdsourcing or any other method may be manipulated by anonymous groups with no public visibility (acting behind the scene). 

• Capitalistic organization: For Lanier, the Web 2.0 and its big players, such as Facebook, Google, MySpace are the lords of the computing clouds and, therefore, they get all the monetary benefits at our expense, since they control the information we see and how we see it. 

For a better insight on his ideas, click on the video below. 

From my point of view, and probably not being a “Guru” like Mr. Lanier, it seems that he has gone a bit too far. With that, I am not saying that he is mistaken by highlighting the inequalities of the Internet or the mob behavior of the users, but I believe that the Web 2.0 gives us the opportunity to create original content, even if we are changing a little detail in an idea that is not ours, that change could impact in a way that it could lead to new creations.

On the other hand, the Internet is still evolving, so many corrections should and will be done in the next years, in order to keep the human being as the center of the system – at the end, the internet and digital technologies in general are here to do what we order them to do, and not the other way around. Anyways, this is a very controversial discussion and I this is just my humble opinion, so to build yours, I invite you to read: “You are not a Gadget”.

Internet and Ants: How are they similar?

So our last post discussed IPv6 (Internet Protocol version 6) and the concept of phenotropic development… What?? Put in simple terms, both of these terms will help Web 3.0 develop into a platform where users (Ex. Consumers and businesses) will likely move into an increasingly social relationship. Pretty cool right? Just nod in agreement…

Now what is even cooler is the concept of stigmergic collaboration! “Stigmergy” is a biological term first introduced by French biologist Pierre-Paul Grasse and it describes environmental mechanisms for coordinating the work of independent actors. It is basically a form of self-organization that allows distinct actors to product complex and intelligent structures without planning, controlling or even communicating directly. An example of stigmergic collaboration in the natural world is when ants leave pheromones to exchange information and create trails.

  

By now you are probably asking yourself what does stigmergic collaboration have to do with the technology? Well, the answer is surprisingly simple. The World Wide Web (Yes, the Internet we use every single day to read the news, update our Facebook status, pick our Fantasy League team, etc.) is the first form of stigmergic communication for people. If we relate back to our ant example, people use weblog links ("pheromones") to establish information paths between different users.

Is everything on the web considered to be “stigmergic collaboration”? Nope. For instance, e-mail does not count as stigmergic collaboration because e-mails can only be read by the senders and receivers on either end of the e-mail. Although I’m not so sure how true this is considering the recent NSA scandals but will leave that out for another post... To sum up, stigmergic collaboration must have messages that can be read by everybody on the World Wide Web and it is a extremely powerful tool!

 

We mentioned the ants and weblog example but do we have anything else? Of course! Think of Google and every time you conduct a search on it. The results are displayed based on Google’s PageRank and this is stigmergic collaboration. The links on the results page act as “pheromones” left by users and every time we click on a link we “create a trail”. The more we click on a link, the more we use the trail and the more we engage on stigmergic collaboration. 

 

Now to conclude, I want to leave you with four major points from Mark Elliot, a well-respected scholar when it comes to stigmergic collaboration. You can view some of his work at http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0605/03-elliott.php. 

1) Collaboration is dependent upon communication, and communication is a network phenomenon. 

2)  Collaboration is inherently composed of two primary components, without either of which collaboration cannot take place: social negotiation and creative output.

3)  Collaboration in small groups (roughly 2-25) relies upon social negotiation to evolve and guide its process and creative output.

4)  Collaboration in large groups (roughly 25-n) is dependent upon stigmergy.

Human + Computer Language Tech part 2

Phenotropic Development

In the development of Web 3.0, IPv6 is required to allow for more devices to communicate with each other. The richness of how those devices communicate with each other in the future is dependent on phenotropic development. What this development will do is basically allow software to move past protocol adherence toward pattern recognition. The main significance of this in terms of expanding the web is the size and richness of programs. Jaron Lanier, web 2.0 pioneer and Microsoft partner architect, discusses how we need to start thinking about creating software differently because
“we will not be writing programs bigger than about ten million lines of code no matter how fast our processors become,”

and the way to think about this is through “pattern recognition” vs. “protocol adherence.”

The way to think about the necessity of phenotropic development in computing is to think of making use of superior developing technology through richness of expression.





Or perhaps how the development of technology and richness of expression may go hand-in-hand. So what does the proposition of phenotropic development mean in commerce? Principally, commerce will move increasingly from selling and buying activities toward social dealings. As we’ve seen relatively recently, firms have moved increasingly toward more social relationships with consumers through social media, such as Facebook.

Through advancements such as IPv6 and phenotropic development, businesses and consumers are likely to move into an increasingly social relationship space far beyond consumer-firm relationships we see today.

New Language Coming

Tech alert: this post contains explanations of internet technology and some technobabble.

Why it’s important:
The buds of technologically-based culture and language have already emerged. The growth of this culture and language have been relatively constrained by defined protocols and the resulting disparate technology-bound human-to-information interface. Web 3.0 will move past constraints of protocols and sequential communication, and spawn an undefined mode of human communication and expression.

Remember the 90’s when people commonly misused basic internet terms? Like, “instant message me” when meaning to say “send me an email.” What about, “log on to x website” when meaning to say “go to x website?”

Don’t be that person as web 3.0 expands the common internet lexicon.

What will the internet language be in the future; what will common terms be? Nobody knows, but read on to discover what will be some of the roots of the forthcoming language. We’ll be throwing out some of the technical roots of Web 3.0 in this blog. For this post, let’s talk about “IPv6.”

IPv6 = Internet Protocol version 6. From wikipedia:

The communications protocol that provides an identification and location system for computers on networks and routes traffic across the Internet. IPv6 was developed by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) to deal with the long-anticipated problem of IPv4 address exhaustion.
Every device on the Internet must be assigned an IP address in order to communicate with other devices. With the ever-increasing number of new devices being connected to the Internet, the need arose for more addresses than IPv4 is able to accommodate. IPv6 uses a 128-bit address, allowing 2128, or approximately 3.4×10^38 addresses, or more than 7.9×10^28 times as many as IPv4, which uses 32-bit addresses.

When thinking of this phenomenon of providing humans 7.9x10^28 times as many ways to communicate as before, it’s kind of like human evolution and the elongation of the human throat and the reduction in the size of the mouth.

It allows us to effectively shape and control infinitely more types of expression, thus language(s). But understanding where Web 3.0 is taking us is not only about IPv6. There’s much more such as post-protocol and tangible interfaces; “phenotropic directories;” and “stigmergic networks.”

Web 3.0 shakes up the Marketing field…once again!

Today is very common to hear acronyms such as SEM, SEO or CMS in our daily life, even if you are not a techy or an online-marketing expert. The more time we spend online, the more important those terms become.

For those who are still not familiarized with them, here you will find a short explanation:

• SEM: Search Engine Management, which includes marketing tools to increase the visibility of your website, i.e. pay-per-click, pay-per view, placements, online-ads and SEO, too.
• SEO: Search Engine Optimization, referred specifically to how to optimize the position of your website in the search engines.
• CMS: Content Management System, the one used to manage the content on your website, social network and any other “platform” where your content is displayed.

But what does these have to do with the Web 3.0? Well, let’s take a look at the evolution of the web to answer this question.

First, we had the Web 1.0, focused on webpages and how to make them reachable by customers. As a result, SEM (including SEO) appeared, letting marketers get closer to their customers by pushing their content, over competitors.

Then, the Web 2.0 was developed and Social Networks came along with it. Now the web was not only flooded by one-way communication pages, but by networks that allow everybody to interact, comment and create his/her own content, leading marketers to create new tactics, in order to take advantage of these new information generated by their customers.

And finally, we are witnessing the Web 3.0 entering the picture. This new concept is still confusing for some of us, because it seems to be just an extended version of the Web 2.0, since the semantic web can be seen as a new way to organise data and make it more accessible, but as it has been explained in previous posts, it’s definitely more than that. 

One of the major aspects of Web 3.0 focuses on data and how to link it. Firms that master the rules of the game faster, will be able to enhance and optimise their online-marketing strategy (including SEM, SEO, CSM, etc.) and, therefore, generate more traffic in their website, by reaching the right customers (the one willing to purchase) with the right data (the data the customer precisely wants), at the right time (when they need it). This is a big deal for marketers, since this kind of customer has a high rate of purchasing, so sales might consistently increase (if well managed and aligned with the goals of the company).

Metadata... Wait, isn't that one of the X-Men?

Before we dive into the 4th post of our blog TINN Can, lets do a small recap of what we have covered so far:

• Web 3.0 includes a number of different meanings ranging from the convergence of the physical and virtual worlds to the conversion of web pages to semantic data formats. When we say “nobody knows what the &!%$ it means,” we mean it.
•  Semantic web is a type of technology used in Web 3.0 and the idea is to structure the meaningful content of web pages.
• Ontology is a component of semantic web, which is used to interpret and analyze metadata. As this technology continues to improve, it will provide users with the exact information they need.

Now in our last post we introduced a new concept: metadata. Meta who? Yes, I know that it sounds like some sort of superhero out of a Stan Lee comic but we are far from that. Right about now you must be thinking, “I knew we had data but what is this metadata stuff you are throwing at me?”

For the purpose of our conversation, we will keep the definition of metadata as simple as possible. And metadata is, wait for it…

DATA ABOUT DATA

Wait, what? That’s it? Yup, for now that is it. We could go into the details of the different types of metadata available but we will leave that for our more curious readers who wish to expand their knowledge and perhaps complicate their lives a little bit more. (Hint: You have structural, descriptive, operational, analytical, Business, etc.)

When we say “data about data”, we mean, for instance, the data that describes the data fields in a database, what data is allowed or how are values expressed. Take for instance, a database with the birthdays of all the people in your company or your school. Now, birth dates can either be written as MM/DD/YYYY, DD/MM/YYYY, YYYY/DD/MM and so on… For this example the term metadata would apply to how the birth date values are kept in the database (Ex. MM/DD/YYYY). Hence, our data are the birthdays of everybody and our data about the data is how those birthdays are to be recorded in our database. We can even go further and include as part of our metadata where in the database the birthdays are recorded, who is the “owner” of this data, who has access to it, etc.

Now, what does this metadata crap have to do with Web 3.0 and how is this relevant to the users? Well, I’m glad you asked. Metadata allows Web 3.0 to be fully interconnected thus facilitating better information search, findings and an overall improvement in content management. What the hell is content management? We will leave that for a future post… All you need to know for now is that metadata will improve your experience in the web as we move forward into the Age of Information.

Ontology?

  So what are the functional components of “semantic web?” We know it can provide us personalized recommendations for what we want to find. This can be seen in many companies such as Google and Amazon who are already applying it to their services. 

  Before seeing more examples, I would like to suggest looking at which “technology/concept” is supporting semantic web, because it is important for us to understand how semantic web works.

  Of course not all of the technology can be covered in one blog post. In this post, let’s focus on the subject of “ontology,” which is a kind of dictionary of languages for the semantic/web 3.0 world.

  Tom Grubber calls ontology:

  “a specification of a conceptualization.”

  It is a description (like a formal specification of a program) of the concepts and relationships that can exist for an agent or a community of agents. This definition is consistent with the usage of ontology as a set-of-concept-definitions, but more general. And it is certainly a different sense of the word than its use in philosophy.[1]

  According to Arvidsson and Flycht-Eriksson, an ontology provides a shared vocabulary, which can be used to model a domain, that is, the types of objects and/or concepts that exist, and their properties and relations. With ontology languages, including DSML+OIL, OWL, and Ontolingun, ontology realizes an accurate search and navigation for knowledge sharing by linking integrated information. Fore example, Facebook is able to offer its genius Graph Search due to web ontology which integrates scattered information and then sorts out valuable information for users through reasoning.

  Search engines based on ontology is great in terms of suitability. However, there are limitations or challenges. First, semantic relations depend on the definitions between words we use in searching. The clearer and more detailed the words are defined, the more coherent and suitable results we can get. Second, we need to consider ambiguity of words.

  To conclude, ontology is a tool to interpret and analyze metadata at least to some extent in semantic web. If it continues to improve as it has done, it will provide the exact information you need. This developing technology could eventually enable a company like Google to narrow down search results with greater relevancy.

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[1] http://www-ksl.stanford.edu/kst/what-is-an-ontology.html

Goog-book???

In our last post, we introduced our philosophy of viewing the web and related technologies, and outlined the iterations of the web in terms of 1.0, 2.0, and 3.0. Our contention is that there is no clear definition of what web 3.0 is exactly. This post is the first in a series that describes some of the technologies and features that are seen as being part of web 3.0. In our journey towards a clearer position on 3.0, let’s talk about “semantic web.”

Semantic web according to the web inventor Tim Berners-Lee:

 “will bring structure to the meaningful content of web pages, creating an environment where software agents roaming from page to page can readily carry out sophisticated tasks for users.”

What does this mean in the real world for businesses and consumers? To demonstrate the idea of semantic web in a business application, let’s see how Facebook used this concept to create a genius idea, which is called the Facebook Graph Search. It is a semantic web engine that is designed to give answers to users queries rather than a list of links.

Graph Search operates by use of a search algorithm similar to traditional search engines such as Google. However, the search is based on intended meaning, which is a feature of the semantic search engine. Rather than returning results based on matching keywords, the search engine is designed to match phrases, as well as objects on the site.

Facebook supports searches for the following types of

·       Places

·       Check-ins of the user, friends, or where user or friends have been tagged

·       Objects with location information attached. In addition, the returned objects will be those in which the user or friends have been tagged, or those objects that were created by the user or friends.

Users can filter results, such as in time (since and until), or search only a given user's News feed.

The feature also allows users to search the web directly. [1]

You can watch the video below to see how Facebook graph bar works:

Facebook Graph bar is only one of many of the applications that use the semantic web technology and in our blog you will see further examples and analysis and how deep the field of the web is.

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[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook_Graph_Search