Ideas for Web 3.0

Web 1.0 was the read-only web.
Web 2.0 enabled users to take part, writing comments, posts, updates, tweets.

But the web evolution did not stop. The next major improvement (Web 3.0) is already under development. Web service APIs, Ajax, micro formats, ...

In our opinion the most important thing is: All those technologies should be user-centric. So, we would like to make some suggestions from the web user's point of view:

Enable users to do their own thing without programming

Currently, users can only use existing services, and post comments or articles. You have to be a programmer, if you want to create something new in the web. Even making a simple, standard design website is not really easy, as you have to deal with CMS software and servers. But, this is just a technical barrier. If web technologies could be made easy enough for the ordinary user, there would be another millions of people, that would take part in creating something creative for the web. A nice example: Yahoo pipes makes it easy for everyone to transform feeds for their needs, without knowing anything about XML or programming languages.

Provide direct communication, collaboration on every site

Websites (where ever appropriate) should provide possibilities to communicate with someone directly, using a IM-like function, web based phone or web based video conferencing. This is not about communicating with the site owner only, but also with other visitors. Visitors are isolated from each other, and posting comments has a time delay. But people that share the same interest, and visit the same site might have something to talk about. Also, a product similar to Google wave would be interesting. Visitors could write or paint something while watching the same page. Or one visitor navigates through the page, while the browsers of the others follow this navigation.

Provide new collaboration possibilities

There also might be other possibilities to improve collaboration between web users. New services should provide more possibilities for people that share the same interests to find each other, to do something together, either directly via web or in the real world. Profiles like facebook can help to bring people together, that (just) know each other, but in many cases they won't collaborate much. There should be more "topic-centric" services, that offer direct possibilities to do something together immediately.

Visualize the web even more

Web 1.0 webpages usually had a large amount of text and links. But user's do not read large texts, they "scan" pages visually to find what they want to see. Texts in most cases remain unread. And those many sidebars with hundreds of links on early portal pages were nothing but confusing. Thanks to Web 2.0 we now have a more clear design, using graphic symbols, and concentrating on the essential content.

But, there are still sites that could be improved. Websites should not consist of text listings, but use graphical metaphors, because graphics can be "scanned" more easily. Also, there are some interesting possibilities to present content more graphically, using graphs or other visual-oriented layouts. As an example have a look at the twitter mashup Trendsmap.com. Using primarily graphics, you get a real intuitive interface.

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