Web 3.0: Just Say No(thing)

By on November 13, 2006 in Tech

Memo to Stowe and Scott (and many others, and I guess me now): by writing about this Web 3.0 business, you are propagating the needless jargon you want to bury.

Media and marketing are always looking for the next slogan, the next hook, the next big thing.  If one doesn’t come along fast enough, they’ll try to invent one.  Wikipedia summarizes this age old marketing concept:

The next big thing is a concept in marketing that refers to a product or idea that will allow for a high amount of sales for that product and related products. Marketers believe that by finding or creating the next big thing they will spark a cultural revolution that results in this sales increase.

If you can get associated with the big thing of the moment, there’s authority to be had and money to be made.  That’s part of why a bunch of people get their noses out of joint when they aren’t invited to pay thousands of dollars to attend an O’Reilly Web 2.0 conference.

That’s all there is to John Markoff’s Web 3.0 article.  An attempt to get a little traction, and maybe create a religion in the process.  A little L. Ron kitchen work, web style.

Nick Carr hopes Web 3.0 will be better.  If not, someone can toss Web 4.0, 5.0 and 6.0 against the wall until one of them sticks.  Nick quotes Markoff quoting some cat who’s a promoter (that’s a funny word in this context) of artificial intelligence.  He thinks Web 3.0 is spooky.

I think what’s even more spooky is when people create needless jargon and we all jump in line to help publicize it.  I also think more than a little of the intelligence that led to the premature buzz (such as it is) about Web 3.0 is, well, artificial.  Like the plastic apple in a bowl, it looks tasty pretty from afar.  But one bite tells you there’s nothing to it but artifice and air.

On the other hand, how silly is it of me to write a post suggesting that we not talk about Web 3.0?

I tried, and failed, not to write this post.  I am doing the very thing I think we shouldn’t do- take the bait and run with it.  Does the fact that I know it make it any less culpable?

I don’t know.  Hopefully I can resist writing another post about Web 3.0 for a long time.  Maybe forever.

Allison Krauss was right- sometimes we say it best when we say nothing at all.

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  • http://www.ethmar.com/ Ethan

    Well, I can hardly resist writing this comment, so i’ll leave it here as a Newsome.org exclusive.Stowe’s post came off as pouty. The same guy who tallies up who the “Edgelings” are in his world gets pouty because someone said the game changed when he wasn’t ready to hear it. His post left me imagining a guy holding a basketball on a football field.More to the point, Stowe has a vested interest in The Game. People are “Edgelings” because if they aren’t, Stowe is in a heap of trouble. This whole 2.0/3.0 thing is tired, man, and I really don’t care what dot-oh we ever get up to. But I’m weird like that.

  • http://www.ethmar.com/ Ethan

    Well, I can hardly resist writing this comment, so i’ll leave it here as a Newsome.org exclusive.Stowe’s post came off as pouty. The same guy who tallies up who the “Edgelings” are in his world gets pouty because someone said the game changed when he wasn’t ready to hear it. His post left me imagining a guy holding a basketball on a football field.More to the point, Stowe has a vested interest in The Game. People are “Edgelings” because if they aren’t, Stowe is in a heap of trouble. This whole 2.0/3.0 thing is tired, man, and I really don’t care what dot-oh we ever get up to. But I’m weird like that.

  • http://freehogg.wordpress.com/ Hogg

    I couldn’t agree with you more. Why can’t we just let the web be the web. It’s going to change and it’s going to evolve. We don’t need to be labeling it. If we did, we’d have to have Web 2.1, and then 2.1.0.1 (security fixes), Web 2.6.17, etc. Let’s just let it be.