Web 4.0 is the impending state at which all the information converges into a great ball of benevolent self-aware light, and solves every problem from world peace to will Jon Snow be alive in the next season of Game of Thrones?
NB This is a viewpoint by Mohnish Bahal, digital marketing manager for Vista Rooms.
Digital marketeers, futurists, radicals - everyone is talking about this new coming wave. Before we get into Web 4.0, it is useful to look back at all the iterations of the internet:
Web 1.0: Read-Only Web
Web 1.0 lasted from 1989 to 2005. At its inception Tim Berners-Lee considered the web as read-only. The defining aspect of web 1.0 is search, think about Yahoo in the late 1990s! At this stage the web's role was very passive in nature.
Web 2.0: Social Community Explosion
2.0 is the second generation of web. This generation was considered as “read-write web”. It encouraged community, social interaction and user-generated content. This generation also gave birth to brilliant digital platforms. Social media, blogs, Reddit, Wikipedia and Twitter all emerged during this phase.
Web 3.0: Immersive and virtual web
Web 3.0 is a recent phenomenon and we are at the very end of this generation. Futurists and digital pioneers call this phenomenon as “3D Web or Semantic Web”. In this phase, everything has a digital footprint, including your house thermostat! 3.0 built a pathway for brilliant innovations such as VR, 360 Videos, real time video streaming and Snapchat!
Web 4.0: Ultra Intelligent Electronic Agents
Interaction between humans and machines is the driving force behind 4.0. We might still well be in Web 3.0 but 4.0 is coming and it's coming fast. Facebook recently launched Agent M, an artificial agent on chat. And we are all aware about Siri.
These systems are getting smarter by the day and it’s not just web. Cars and home systems are getting smart at an exponential rate. There's no need to imagine driverless cars, we are already there!
David Burrus, a futurist, says that you will be able to give your agent a personality of your choice. It will say to you things like this:
"Good morning. You're flying to Boston today. Take a raincoat, it's raining. By the way, that fight you were taking, it’s already been cancelled. Don't worry about it. There was a mechanical. I've already booked you on a new one. I'll tell you about it on the way to the airport. But remember you’re going to exercise every day and I’m here to remind you that you’re going to exercise." And you might say, “I don't know if I want to exercise today,” and It'll show you a nude profile of yourself. And you’ll say, “You know what, I think I'm going to exercise today.”
The 4.0 wave will not just bring disruption in the way we communicate with the web, but also change how we perceive the web.
The only thing certain is that exciting times lie ahead. Are you prepared for it?
NB This is a viewpoint by Mohnish Bahal, digital marketing manager for Vista Rooms.
NB2Image downloaded from HBO's official Game of Thrones micro-site.