By: Chris Hahn, Appature

It has been almost 15 years since Web 2.0 was first coined as a term (1999) to describe a vision of constant access, complete connectivity, and user control. The promises made under its umbrella have taken the world by storm. 78% of the adult population of America uses highly connected smartphones. This means pocket devices that tell us where to go and what to do have firmly left the realm of science fiction. 65% of the world’s internet users are connected to each other via social media , with the ability to mobilize, within mere hours, large-scale meet-ups, flash mobs, and even political revolutions. And thanks to focused user participation, trust, and freer information, we can hire a private driver, buy a new sweater, or find out where everyone we know is, right now, with hardly more than a thought – no matter where we are.

So, what’s next? We seem to be due for another round of radical rethinking of the Web. This is where we start talking about Web 3.0. Here’s how I think about Web 3.0: If Web 2.0 was about having “dynamic sites with friends at our fingertips”, Web 3.0 will start to act like my best friend, or personal assistant, who knows exactly what I want and when I want it, and will serve it up to me just the way I like it. Critical to this relationship, like all the best personal relationships, will be a) a history of shared experiences (Data), b) a code of behavior (Technology), and c) a little something I’ll call friendship — which is really a true relationship exchange where value ‘delivered’ exceeds value ‘taken’ (Personal Experience).

Analogy aside, Web 3.0 is going to be more living, breathing, and organic than the Web as we know it today. What we have in front of us is far more than a next gen technical release. In fact, I propose that the dot releases are antiquated; technology cannot evolve further without relevance. We are facing a revolution in a paradigm beyond technology. We are now living in a world where technology must be integrated with data to deliver personalized experiences. I like to think about this new Web as Web Me.0 as opposed to Web 3.0.

For this new Me-focused Web to happen, three aspects need an orchestrated coming-together:

• Data: We need to gather and leverage the vast amount of consumer, web, health, and financial information to parse out the minute and discrete likes, dislikes, and trends for everyone (i.e., Big Data).
• Technology: Technology needs to be used to unlock information in a way that accelerates idea interconnection (e.g. the Semantic Web) and an automated value exchange between customer and service. Gone are the days of SQL Servers alone solving these problems. New solutions with new capabilities must be developed and employed.
• Personalized Experiences: Bringing data and technology together with purpose and strategy is the foundation of this new breed of internet enabled services and technologies. Mining data for the sake of after-the-fact customer understanding is no longer enough, and neither is the usage of technology for technology’s sake. Web 3.0 will be about layering prospective data over technology with the right strategy that builds the trusted relationships and value exchanges needed to survive in a future filled with empowered and easily distracted customers who demand services expressly tailored to them.

To bring these three concepts together with some examples, it is helpful to look at companies that are doing groundbreaking work along these lines today. Which companies are helping us become smarter, faster, and healthier versions of ourselves?

Amazon.com knows so much about people’s buying habits that it regularly is able to provide a hyper-personalized shopping experience that delights and drives revenue. Pandora knows their users’ music tastes better than the users themselves. Even LinkedIn, a company that many people think of as nothing more than a glorified online resume, is growing 80% a quarter thanks to access to a rich source of data that they are able to leverage in innovative ways that solidly benefit their users.

Companies like these tend to regularly beat expectations for growth. What’s tying them together is the fact that they combine powerful technology on top of rich and expanding data sets to enable machine-aided interconnected ideas and experiences. These types of companies have successfully positioned themselves at the front of the goldmine (ideas) with pickaxes and shovels at the ready (technology and data).

Companies that manage to effectively deliver on the three pillars of Web 3.0 — Data, Technology and Personalized Experiences — will be poised to be the next Google or Amazon. To do this, we all need to be thinking hard about the data assets we have and which assets we can create. We then need to be thinking about how we can get those assets out into the marketplace. Lastly, we need to ensure that all of this information is deployed in a way that delights users no matter where they are in the world – on any kind of device.

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1 Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project Post Election Survey, November 14-December 09, 2012