Web 3.0 and the Future

The first step in designing a website is understanding your audience. This is easier than it may sound. Think big. Really big. Not in terms of traffic, necessarily, but the longevity of your site. How many sites developed in 1995 still exist, dinosaurs of the Internet? They are obvious, and even painful to look at. But how do you come across them? In the majority of cases, they persist out there because they offer something that still hasn't been replicated. Data. Content. Originality.

O'Reilly has refined the field of IT analysis by thinking outside the box. The term "Web 2.0"? He came up with it. Now he has a series of books on Internet development, on practically every approach you would want to cover. Web 2.0 redefines web development in its approach to understanding the audience, bringing them into the magic circle, letting them participate. Content management systems support this process, add functionality and drive potential for wider audiences to participate. It is no longer strictly about content, but facilitating the ability for users to add content.

But this is no longer news. This is known. This is where we're at. People play the game, just like I am writing this piece in hope that you may check me out, who I am, which in turn informs my world and the world I am trying to build. We are driving towards a bigger whole. We are not just building technology, it is building us.

This is where Web 3.0 fits in. When asked about the term, O'Reilly reportedly joked. Now he denies the possibility of such a thing. Time to think outside the box again, Tim.

Web 3.0 represents a new frontier for web development. This is where content comes back into play, but in a radical new UI with limitless possibilities of immersive experience. How many of us have tried SecondLife, only to be bored stiff? How many of us have built websites that had the tools, the widgets, functionality up the yin yang, and less traffic than the Sahara?

Web development for the future means integration of persistent memory. In this case it means inclusion of things that are so memorable that the site will still be kicking in 2025. It means driving for the cutting edge, but remembering backwards compatability. It means attention to style (for the moment) and carefully placed nuggets which will endure for the future. It means supporting with your code and debugging the open source projects that you use, in order that they will survive into the future. It means stubbornness to insert windows of old HTML into new 3D spaces, enabling visitors to go retro if they so choose.

Article by Xanadu With only a few years left to fix this screwed up planet, we represent a small group of transmedia freaks trying to assemble a larger collective of smart people to help save the world.

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