Sunday, December 11, 2016

Web 3.0 Huh?

One of the most interesting outcomes of this computer age is how it evolves.  Back in 1993, I ran a BBS using a DOS computer then Windows and later OS/2.  When the internet first started to take off, navigation was much different than today.  In fact Google and Yahoo! were not really part of the world wide web.

Fast forward to today.  We are talking about Web 2.0, aka cloud based computing and starting to see Web 3.0, Dynamic search results.  This is all possible because people smarter than me have found this online platform, the internet to be a vast ocean ready to be taken advantage of.

Web 2.0 offers a exciting mix of tools, to accomplish tasks that just 5 ears ago required a suite of software costing over $1000.  Now with all the free or little cost choices, the world is our oyster. However these do not come without a price.  For nothing is free.  As one of my co-workers has stated, you give up your privacy for the access to the tech.  In many ways, that is a very high price to pay for the upgrades.  The problem is, what is privacy worth, and what are the large companies going to do with that data. Of course, the companies will be glad to sale you your privacy and many companies and government agencies will pay for access.  The data you provide is valuable but so is your privacy and that is the greatest Peril of Web 2.0.

With Web 3.0 we also have similar issues with respect to privacy, but also with what happens when we look for data.  In Web 3.0, we will find that the computer is picking and choosing what results we see instead of giving us a choice of what might be important. The danger with this is, that someone can manipulate the results and skew what someone will believe.  That in itself is a great power that had the very real possibility to shape the way people think, and remove the ability for someone to review all the relevant material.  As with anything, time will tell how this might shape the outcome of of events, and learning.

One other aspect of the web is the tools we use.  Now, we looked at live binder, and while I see a great deal of possibilities, I think one of the most powerful Web 2.0 tools is Pintrest.  I am a very visual person, and the ability to have a variety of boards with photos and links on it, is more valuable to me than the Live Binders.  I am able to scan right away a particular board and see what I am looking for because of the use photos and videos.  I am will be honest, Live Binder does have an appeal, but it lacks a lot of the sharing that Pintrest has.  I know that many of my friends have similar interest and I am able to go through an search their boards to get idea.  As a tool in the Web 2.0 arena, Pintrest is much more usable for me than Live Binder.

No comments:

Post a Comment