Ben Bashford

The NYTimes recently published an article titled Entrepreneurs See a Web Guided by Common Sense, which is essentially talking about how people are working toward Tim Berners Lee ’s vision of Semantic Web, mixing it up with some ill-informed Microformats hyperbole, and pushing it as the next step in the development of the internet under the moniker “Web 3.0”. Damn their eyes. Some articles are even going so far as to say that web 3.0 is being referred to as Semantic Web, like the term is a new one.

I agree near enough wholeheartedly that is is a very exciting time and that things like microformats coupled with intelligent search will indeed have a massive impact on the way we use the web, but 3.0? Please stop it now. We’re having a hard enough time dealing with the tsunami of bullshit surrounding the whole 2.0 thing without people adding extra version numbers to the web.

A search for web 3.0 on technorati or viewing the web3.0 tag on del.icio.us reveals the emerging buzz.

Anyone talking about “Web 3.0” anywhere near me is going to get a slap. Seriously though, I’m worried because concepts like Semantic Web are really quite hard for people to understand and if the press go shouting their mouths off, promising the earth and getting their facts totally wrong we’re going to be in a world of pain again like in 2001.

Web Dark Ages 2.0 anyone?

Something needs to be done.

Edit: the web 3.0 article on Wikipedia has been deleted and protected. I love Wikipedia. Nice one.