Web 3.0 - Attention Management

I've written a few times about Web 3.0 before. I have been pretty dismissive to say the least. The definitions keep shifting and none of them particularly convince me that the paradigm change is sufficient enough to justify a version number change.

In recognition of that confusion, there has been a fun competition run by Read/Write Web for a one line description. As part of the converage, James Brown claims that Web 3.0 is actually about better metadata and smart agent-side filtering.

As an example - he cites Particls:

"But perhaps the next step is for it to analyse attention data, like which articles I delete and which I click through; then apply some clever filters appropriately. It looks like Google is on the way to doing this.

And then there's tools like Particls. Formerly called Touchstone, this is a "personalised news and alert service" which monitors the internet, your feeds and other information like your calendar and emails, learns which are important to you, and alerts you in different ways according to their importance."

I do think that intelligent filtering on the agent-side is important (what a surprise hey!) but I am not sure it's called web 3.0. It's called Personalized Aggregation, or Personal Relevancy or Attention Management - and it can fit neatly into the current web.

And next... it needs to move into Media 2.0

Web 2.0 - Nothing to see here... moving right along...

A lot of people are reading and writing about Web 3.0 again - Spurred by Alex's post on RRW.

I, myself, have written about Web 3.0 late last year. Here's an excerpt:

Web 3.0? Are you serious? Apparently a lot of people are. More than I imagined. It seems from the search results, though, Web 3.0 is some sort of Web 2.0 - except with more of everything. More mainstream users, more revenue (or finding a way to get revenue in the first place), more programmable etc.

To summarize - I thought it was a silly idea.

I was going to ignore the subject this time until I read a post by Peter Rip. I love this quote:

"VCs have always made money at finding the ideal point of friction between the Present and the Future. Profits accumulate in the gap between What Is and What Is Possible. Web 2.0 is now firmly in the category of What Is."

The quote caught my eye because one or two VCs I have spoken to (and an awful lot of investor types are always fishing around) make the statement "oh it's too early for this kind of thing" (this kind of thing being a focus on Attention as a consumer tool). It always makes me laugh.

I think Peter is spot on. I too am tired of all the 'me too' services out there. They are so unoriginal. In many cases the winners have been decided.

I do have a problem, however, with claiming that Web 3.0 is all about web services. Web services are an old idea and APIs are already part of the Web 2.0 evolution. So to claim that they are part of Web 3.0 is a bit like saying 'HTML is part of Web 2.0'.

APIs are here to stay. Screen scraping will reduce over time as apps either play nice or die. But I don't think that broader adoption of APIs is a sufficient paradigm change (at least on its own) to justify a new version number.

So to summarize:

• Web 0.5 was about communication - Chat/Email.
  
• Web 1.0 was about one way publishing - CMS/Portals - Corporates came first and they declared their message to us poor users. Community was relegated to a second class citizen on forums (if at all)
  
• Web 2.0 was about two way publishing - Blogs/YouTube/Digg - The community (specifically the individual acting as part of a community) become a first class citizen. The web became personal.

I am not sure Web 3.0 is coming. At least not any time soon. Instead I think the next big opportunity is Media 2.0.

I think that Web 2.0 was merely an overdue adjustment in our thinking. It was a realization that the web is not just another broadcast medium. That broadcasting radio/TV/print over TCP/IP was not the point or the promise of this new platform. It was a realization that interaction models that empowered the audience to become the most important part of the ecosystem was the actual point of the medium.

It's like when TV grew up and stopped doing radio plays and started doing lifelike drama.

I think the next revolution is the web transforming other forms of media. That is, creating interaction models that go beyond the web (or extend the web into more places and form factors). It's about the web transforming traditional TV, Radio and Print to become more interactive. It's about democratizing the mainstream - not just on the web - but everywhere.

Blog Highlights of 2006

Hi everyone - I hope you had a great 2006. I know we certainly have. In just one year, Touchstone has gone from the back of a napkin to a funded, flying company with a number of great staff, friends, advisors and testers. We wish to thank you all very much for your efforts this year - we literally could not be doing this without you.

Here are the highlights from the blog over the last year in reverse order (most recent at the top).

Hitting the Mainstream 2
Information Overload hits the mainstream media for a second time - in a big way.

Hitting the Mainstream 1
Information Overload hits the mainstream media for the first time (or there abouts)

Democracy Now!
Web 2.0 has barley hit and people are talking about Web 3.0. We discuss how absurd that is and why YouTube is NOT Web 2.0.

Show me the money (or pain!)
Some people (read:head in the sand) think there is no information overload problem. This post explains why there is.

Filtering vs. Ranking
Some people are still talking about filtering RSS. Filtering is so 5 years ago.

Aggregation is King
Content used to be king. If that's true, then Aggregation is now master of the universe.

Desktop vs. Web-based
Web 2.0 implies that stuff is on the web. Not true. This post talks about the value of desktop applications in a web world. By the way - did you know the Browser is a desktop application? Shock/Horror.

What is Attention Data?
And no - it is not just OPML or Attention.XML.

Personalized Content
Some claim that the battle for 'People Powered News' is over. Digg and others have won. I make the argument that People Powered News MIGHT be done, but Personalized Content is just getting started.

There is no more audience
Participants have killed the audience. Media outlets that treat their audience like eyeballs are doomed to fail in a Media 2.0 world. This is a short rant about the death of the Audience.

Touchstone funded by Angel
Touchstone get's funded by an Angel Investor. What more do we need to say about that!

The Long Tail of Attention
Chris Anderson describes the three factors that have made the Long Tail a viable market. I then explain why a Tool like Touchstone empowers the 'Long Tail' (that's you and me) to take advantage.

Personal Relevancy
What is Personal Relevancy exactly? It's when your interests and personality become the basis for choosing content, rather than the whims of one editor who decides what 'the mainstream' should care about.

Tune Out the Noise
Touchstone is not about alerting - it is about NOT alerting. Think about that.

Attention, Scarcity and Demand
Markets work on Supply and Demand. Price is dictated by Scarcity. So in an era of abundance, the scarcest resource is our Attention.

Power Back in your hands
Amazon Recommendations are great... for them. They help cross-sell and up-sell their customers. But what if you could use the same technology to take control of your information across all the sites you visit?

Anti-Web 2.0
Touchstone is a desktop application. Does this make it Anti-Web 2.0?

Not a Gadget Engine
Touchstone compared to the current rash of Gadget/Widget engines out there.

RSS is not just about News
Imagine using RSS for something other than News. Feed readers fail for most of those other applications. Touchstone picks up the slack.


Thanks again for sticking with us. The best is yet to come!

Chris, Ash and the whole Touchstone Crew.

Web 3.0 - Are you serious?

I am starting to get a little sick of talking about versioning the web - as I'm sure you are. But I've just found something that has forced me to address it again.

Have you seen this? It's a search from the Web 2.0 Workgroup website on Eurekster on their hottest topic at the moment - Web 3.0.

Web 3.0? Are you serious?

Apparently a lot of people are. More than I imagined.

It seems from the search results, though, Web 3.0 is some sort of Web 2.0 - except with more of everything. More mainstream users, more revenue (or finding a way to get revenue in the first place), more programmable etc.

First let me restate my case about Web 2.0 (*sigh*). 'Community' is not Web 2.0. Community is as old as Newsgroups and IRC (pre web) forums (web 1.0) and have merely changed shape with more sites dedicated to 'user generated content' (ugly term I know). So the community aspects of YouTube (for example) are not what make it Web 2.0.

The Web 2.0 part is more complex and profound - yet it all has a common theme - the participant is the most important entity in every transaction. You and I are in control.

It's about how the creative and editorial power is shifted from a central editor to a community of millions.

It's about making the site content portable through embedded players and syndication.

And it's about the CEO bloging about what they're doing so that the community has a transparent way of understanding the motives, intentions and direction of THEIR platform.

YouTube, however, is still not a fully realized Web 2.0 platform. It still tries to trap the user on their site. To drive traffic to their pages and to create a community on their terms.

The ultimate Web 2.0 solution is when I create my own platform and video is only part of my self-expression and community. Where my friends are my friends, irrespective of the tools they use or the content they create.

This platform is already emerging - to date they have been called Blogs, but I think blogs are much more important than people think. Maybe the name needs to change to suggest something grander than a 'Web Log' - but ultimately blogs are the ultimate form of participant power.

They are not a forum, yet there is a discussion going on.

They are not video hosting site, yet there can be video there.

They are not a photo sharing site, yet there are photos there.

They are not mySpace yet I have a list of subscribers (read: friends) and contacts (read: blogrolls).

They are not social news, yet Technorati and TechMeme seem to know what the top news is.

Blogs are the purest example of Web 2.0. They are decentralized, syndicated (and then aggregated), social, self-expressive personal islands that connect via a great ocean called the blogosphere.

So if we have not yet properly recognized, commercialized and leveraged Web 2.0 - why the heck are we talking about Web 3.0. Especially when it seems like the definition seems to be 'Web 2.0 for the masses'. If Web 3.0 is Web 2.0 for the masses, then that sounds to me like Mainstream adoption of Web 2.0.

I am queasy just writing all these version numbers.

Dreaming up the future is one thing, but trying to create a new buzzword so that you can be the first one who thought of it is quite another.

Web 2.0 represents something much more fundamental than a bubble of new software online. Web 2.0 represents the democratization of information and media. It is a change in the way we tell stories and connect to each other.

More importantly than that, however, It is a symptom of a cultural change in the civilized world from top down hierarchy to distributed participation and freedom of expression. Where the storytellers are no longer just manufactured celebrities – but you and me. Where what’s newsworthy today is not what’s popular for my demographic, but rather what is personally relevant to me.

Let's not trivialize this cultural change (it's greatest example being Web 2.0) by trying to jump ahead to some fantasy version number just because some of us want to pretend to be pioneers.