John Markoff of The New York Times is a storied technology journalist who has broken a number of stories, including the first mainstream media stories about the Internet. He has laid yet another marker in the ground with the so-called “semantic web.”
The idea is simple: Web 1.0 is information coming at you, Web 2.0 is two-way participation with the web, and Web 3.0 / the semantic web is about information conforming to your interests. In other words, search engines become less relevant, because the information you want it already coming to you. An early example of such an idea is RSS feeds (really simple syndication), where content that you subscribe to gets funneled down into your RSS reader and comes to you automatically. But you have to subscribe to RSS feeds, and true semantic web means that content will come to you automatically.
There’s a huge chicken and egg issue here, though. For services to be aware enough of your interests to offer you relevant content proactively requires a huge amount of information about your interests, raising huge privacy issues. Even as people get more comfortable with their lives going online (and the associated reduction in privacy), this is probably too high a bar to climb.
That’s why I see a huge opportunity in identity management companies. Currently, they are fragmented and offer a number of niche services: single sign-on for corporations, reputation defender services and anti-identity fraud services. But imagine a company – who you paid, say, $30 a year for – who manage all of your online identities, allowing you to use the same login and password everywhere, who know all your likes and dislikes, who manage your relationship with advertisers (i.e., can give or take away information about you as needed) – and who are ultimately responsible to you. If you want to delete all your information, great – it’s your call. I believe this kind of a service is a necessary precursor to the semantic web, and it will be a huge opportunity for those who figure it out.
1 comment:
I totally agree that the next step in the life of the web will be to connect the dots representing information about us to each other and thus creating a unified presence online. I agree that this needs a cautious management of privacy. Such an entity that you are suggesting is one possible solution. The question is which company will users vote to be Big Brother...?
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