Ross Bentley reports on a new generation of internet technology that wants to get to know you…
There’s no doubt the so-called Web 2.0 movement has shaped the online world in recent years.
Driven by sites such as TripAdvisor, YouTube and Facebook, the trend has seen user-generated content attracting other users who in turn contribute their own content.
But just as you are getting used to the term Web 2.0, there is already talk of Web 3.0.
Gapyear.com founder Tom Griffiths believes Web 3.0 will be based on users having a universal profile that accompanies them wherever they travel on the internet.
He said: “You only have to look at how kids are already using technology. You have gamers using their Xbox to play games with people on the other side of the world via the internet. They develop profiles, which they use to introduce themselves.”
Extrapolate this trend onto the wider internet and Griffiths foresees a time when our individual profile will allow us to shop much smarter online – ensuring we only see products that are based on our preferences.
He said: “If my profile [says] I’m 34 years old with two kids and I’m into wine, when I visit a travel website I won’t be shown details on a long weekend in Ibiza. I’ll be given product such as family holidays or wine trips.”
While Web 1.0 was all about technologists creating the first generation of websites and Web 2.0 about users taking over, Griffiths defines Web 3.0 as the point where “the customer gets all the power, and can select what they want and ignore everything else”.
A different definition of Web 3.0 is given by Lewis Lensse, managing director at Netizen Digital – a web design company that has worked with the likes of Gullivers Sports Travel and Qantas Holidays.
He believes Web 3.0 is all about the so-called Semantic Web where emerging XML-based technologies will allow all information to be tagged using a universally understood language – making it possible for the web to better understand and satisfy the requests of people and machines to use web content.
According to Lenssen, the implications for the travel industry could be the ability for users to get a perfect set of information about offers to a chosen destination. “This will allow an exact comparison of prices – meaning suppliers will be forced to come down to the lowest price or make an extra effort in marketing the added value they offer,” he said.
For Jerome Touze, founder of travel social networking site WAYN.com, Web 3.0 will be about a revolution in the way we access the internet on mobile devices. He talks about location-based social networking – a new concept combining global positioning technologies with social networking – which could be big for the travel sector.
He said: “We will see the arrival of tools allowing users to track the exact location of their registered friends on their mobile device or laptop. They will be able to find out what their friends recommend in a destination and reveal their own location to existing and potential new friends.”
It is likely that all these visions of the online world will materialise in one form or another in the future, but at the moment it is anyone’s guess as to where the ‘killer app’ will come from or which technology will dominate to the point where it can rightly claim the Web 3.0 title.
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