Evolution of web

The topic of the lecture this week was 'New News'. It focused strongly on the different webs and how it is affecting news today.

Web 1.0

Web 1.0 is defined as the information web and focused specifically on companies. It was like a big brochure full of advertising. It was the start of the interwebs generation and was naturally very basic. Personally, I found it highly irritating to use - too many ads (irony?).

Now we have moved into a newer generation of the web. The younger, more-loved sibling of dear, old Web 1.0.

Web 2.0

Web 2.0 is the social web that we all know and love today. Obviously it is strongly focused on social groups and mass communication. Today, I find it highly unlikely that any person living in an established country does not use some form of social media from time to time. Even those old grans and pops are logging in to these 'good-for-nothing-computing-machines' to use programs such as Skype to talk to family all over the world. Web 2.0 is also very much focused on 'prod-users' (producer users). It is allowing everyone to be linked to each other, and it creates a network where you can get anything you want out there (good or bad.)

Web 3.0

And now, still newly emerging, we have web 3.0. This brand new web is focusing on the individual specifically and is also known as the "semantic web". It uses metatagging, hyperlocalisation and specific content delivery to help find information that is specifically relevant to the individual alone. However, this has many possible downfalls. Primarily: ignorance! 

Given the opportunity to only choose news which the individual find interesting, there's a very likely chance that ignorance of other important issues, however uninteresting, will grow exponentially. World coverage of news may be quickly forgotten, and only some news will be known to some people who choose to know it. 

Now isn't that a scary possibility?