Introduction
If you are already up to date with concepts such as the ones of blockchain, DeFi, or metaverse, now is the time to find out about Web3. This term has gained traction in 2021 and 2022 and continues to be mentioned in articles that discuss about topics such NFTs, cryptocurrencies, or decentralized finance. However, Web3 (or Web 3.0) is far more than that as you will see below.
On top of the latest trends and news, I see more ads, courses and job offers related to Web3. That is related to the growth and how the corporate world can benefit from this generation.
Web3 is the third generation of Internet services for web site and applications. This concept focuses on the use of machine-based data understanding to provide a semantic and data-centric Web. The final goal of Web3 is to create smarter, more connected, and more open websites. Not just that, but the goal of Web3, as we will see later, is also to give back the prominence to the users.
Web3 is not implemented yet, so there is no clear definition about various aspects yet. To give you an idea, making the transition from the original web, from Web 1.0 to Web 2.0, took more than one decade. Nowadays, we are still working with Web 2.0 and there may be still years to come until we see the full capabilities of Web3.
History of the Internet
To give you some history about the internet, we can see that each topic for each of the Web version:
Web 1.0
If the early web, called 1.0, everything worked around hyperlinks. Web 1.0, also known as the World Wide Web, appeared first. Some of us will remember those days when connecting to the Internet was a still a slow process and there were still not many options yet.
Web 2.0
Next, we have Web2.0. This one was around social networks. This is the term you have been hearing in the last years with the boom of Facebook, Twitter and other companies.
As more people began to use the Internet, the potential it had was understood globally. For this reason, new infrastructures were created to promote it. The Internet became faster and allowed for heavier applications and websites, which gave rise to the era of social networks and huge platforms such as Netflix, YouTube, Facebook, or Amazon.
Today, people from all over the world can share information and be entertained, shop, find answers to their questions and interact with each other thanks to Web 2.0.
Web3
The last generation, Web 3.0, is based on tokens, the digital units of exchange for blockchain technologies.
There are already some Web3 examples. On one hand, we have Apple's Siri, which uses voice recognition techniques and artificial intelligence to bring results and perform actions . To give us an idea of the improvement that this entails, Webs 1.0 and 2.0 carry out word-by-word matches of the text in relation to what is published on the network. This often brings with it an information bias.
Web3 systems, however, seek contextualized knowledge to help people in their searches, pointing to a series of analyses and potentially useful information. One of the distinctions of the Web 3.0 search engine is the time the user needs to spend navigating through a universe of data to find what they really want resolved.
Companies like Amazon, Apple and IBM have been investing heavily in Web 3.0 technologies. For example, Google Inc. over the last decade has made several acquisitions of companies in the Semantic Web area, such as Applied Semantics and Metaweb Technologies, Inc, among others.
On the other hand, not everything will take so long to arrive to our daily lives. There are some technologies that will define this new web that are already being developed. For example, smart home and home automation applications using wireless networks and IoT are examples of how Web3 is already impacting technology.
If we go to existing devices: Apple's Siri or Amazon’s Alexa are examples of Web3 since they combine artificial intelligence with voice recognition. This network is still developing and there is still a long way to go. Another important player in Web3 is the Brave Browser and some interesting reward mechanisms such as BAT tokens.
Users and content creators will gain power via tokenization and rewards in Web3
Characteristics of Web3
First, Web 3.0 will be primarily data centric. This data is endless and for that reason it is necessary to design an appropriate storage architecture and technology. Although Big Data seems to be the way to go, there is still research to be done on the most effective use of technology to store and manage this data, as privacy issues could arise in the future too.
Tokenization
This new web model has many services based on the token economy, so that the ownership and control of these services would be distributed among the owners of the tokens, who are also users. The tokens, as we know, have exchange value, so this means that users can collect these tokens whenever they want. Therefore, Web3 and DeFi may also come hand in hand.
What it does seem is that Web 3.0 will be primarily data centric. This data is infinite and therefore it is necessary to design an appropriate storage architecture and technology. Although Big Data seems to be the way to go, there is still a lot of research to be done on the most effective use of technology to store data, as privacy issues could arise.
Robustness
This network will give creators and users more freedom in general. It will ensure that the latter always have control over their online data by using decentralized networks. The next version of the Internet is also expected to be more reliable given its decentralized nature, which eliminates the possibility of a single point of failure
Democratization
It does not need to be controlled by a single entity. The largest companies may no longer have full control over the Internet. As a result, decentralized applications or apps cannot be censored or restricted in any way.
What is going on now with Web 2.0 is that users create but it is the technology companies that monetize this content
Customization
We will also be able to personalize our browsing experience because this type of website will be able to understand our preferences and tastes. This will also allow us to navigate more productively, focusing on what we are really interested in.
Commerce
The same way Web3 will help users, this version will also help businesses, and this will cause eCommerce to continue growing. Sellers will better understand our purchasing needs and will show us those products and services that we are interested in buying with the help of artificial intelligence. This will allow us to see better, more relevant ads that are more likely to be beneficial to us.
Better connectivity
In the past years, we have seen cases that because of interruptions in the service, we have lost access to some sites or services for hours.
Since the data will be stored in distributed databases by decentralization, users will not have to worry about service interruptions or account suspensions for technical reasons.
Decentralization
As we have commented in the previous point, one of the key characteristics of web 3.0 is decentralization. In this new version, the data will be connected in a decentralized way, unlike 2.0, in which it is mainly stored in centralized places. Therefore, the data will not be kept in the datacentres of big corporations anymore.
We saw with the explosion of web 2.0 brings social networks and interactivity with the user, which creates most of its content. It is the era of companies like Facebook, Google, Apple, Amazon, creating silo, centralized services dependent on these corporations.
The role of corporations
The impact of Web 3.0 on companies will take place in different ways. In some cases, it will make them highly user-centric and more transparent . Everything that was wrong in terms of user data will undergo a radical transformation.
Traditional and new businesses alike will welcome Blockchain technology and all the possibilities it brings. You will see that your applications will receive blockchain updates in which everything will be made public and accessible.
Web 3.0 will bring about a major change in how the Internet works by focusing on user privacy. In fact, this is a problem that has been discussed for a long time but has not been effectively solved.
Web3 uses blockchain technology, unlike Web 2.0, which takes advantage of the Internet to develop applications. It is technically safer to store customer data on a blockchain as it is decentralized and its use by businesses is transparent, thus protecting it from hackers. Some experts say the transfer of data ownership to consumers could disrupt the technology sector. And this is because many technology companies would lose access to the data that has given them a competitive advantage until now.
Also, thanks to blockchain technology, visitors to a website will have a more pleasant login experience. Think how many times you have logged into websites using your Facebook profile. Blockchain technology employs the same principle as Facebook, which already owns the user's information. However, by using Blockchain, you will be the sole owner of your information.
What's next?
To sump up, in Web 3 , users will also be able to interact with data thanks to the use of artificial intelligence and machine learning technology. That is, it will combine the concepts of the Semantic Web with AI.
On the other hand, the use of artificial intelligence will allow data much faster to users and that these data will be more relevant and personified. We are starting to see the use of this technology on the Internet through algorithms that are used to suggest products or videos to users based on their previous searches .
However, this will be even more advanced, and we have still to see a wide range of new possibilities in the upcoming years.
We could say that with Web3 we come back to where the Internet started and the original idea: a decentralized internet, where there is no control from central authorities and the power is given back to the users and consumers. However, the full potential of Web3 is still to be seen.