Web 3.0 Coming Soon – But What was Web 2.0?

Getting Ready for Web 3.0

Honestly, I have never really known exactly what web 2.0 was. I’ve seen some great definitions and a few flashy pages, but when it comes to an OED definition, for what web 2.0 actually “is”… you would think a politician wrote it.

Web 2.0 – Where Do We Go From Here?

OK, I do actually have an idea about what web 2.0 is or was. Think rounded corners, gradient colors, simple backgrounds and Ajax functions. Web 2.0 was supposed to be interactive and give the end user more benefits and choices. Web 2.0 also marked the great leap in bandwidth. The average user went from a 56kbps connection to a 1mbps. This had a huge impact on both users and the way the internet is seen. But Web 2.0 has fallen short on many of it’s promises and totally ignored the newest medium of the internet.

Web 2.0 – A Story of Conflicting Technology

Another great feature of the web 2.0 was user interfaces. Ajax is changing the way users interact with the web. This is both a positive and a negative in my opinion. While the use of javascript has increased, the percentage of users who are using javascript have decreased – interesting.  While web developers were churning out the latest smooth flowing Ajax applications,  technology, in the form of the Firefox browser, gave users the freedom to choose to use javascript or not.  So, while Web 2.0 was using more and more javascript, users were not as likely to be able to use these new pages. That’s quite a conundrum.  Many web pages that required javascript fell into the trap of thinking their content would be good enough to catch users with graphics and interaction. Many web sites saw a drop in visitors. Not only was javascript required to use the pages, navigation became clumsy and non-linear.  Users were lost in navigation and struggled to find content. This wasn’t supposed to be the result of Web 2.0

Web 2.0 also saw the first real web enabled mobile devices. Users were able to connect to the internet using their cell phones, but cell phones have very limited viewing areas, slower downloads and a very limited screen size. Many websites had rebuilt their websites to be “user friendly”, but what about cell phone browsers? Many phone browsers couldn’t handle the increased width of pages or the Ajax functions. Instead, cell phone users were left with slow loadings, difficult to navigate and error pages. Was this what Web 2.0 was supposed to be?

Flash content saw a dramatic rise with Web 2.0  Any SEO person will tell you, Flash and search engine optimization do not play well together. Search engines can not see the content and Flash and that’s really a shame. Flash is an excellent methods for delivering information to users in a fixed medium. But often, Flash websites have missed the point of using Flash. Flash should be used sparingly, not as a website platform. Sure, big names can get away with using only Flash, but they have built brand recognition. The little guys have suffered from over using Flash content and found their sites suffering the wrath of Google SERP.

Web 3.0 or 2.0 SP1 – Two Steps Forward, Two Steps Back

Before we start thinking about Web 3.0, we should really look long and hard at what Web 2.0 failed to deliver: a predictable, cross platform  user experience. Web 2.0 focused on features rather than usability and uniform performance across browsers. Where Web 1.0 was HTML and a little javascript, Web 2.0 relied heavily upon javascript, Ajax, Active-X plugins and highly specialized applications. Web 2.0 focused on technology rather than users. Have you ever clicked the back button in your browser when navigating Ajax pages – uggh!

Getting Ready for Web 3.0

Before web designers and programmers begin to think about Web 3.0, they must learn from the mistakes of Web 2.0  Web pages need to work for all browsers, operating systems and screens. Cell phones are an important market that must be addressed. Cell phone users need to be able to view your web pages and they need to be easy to navigate. Don’t rely on javascript. Content is king and so many of the Ajax pages render nothing, confusing results or even worse, a page telling you to turn on cookies and javascript.

Web 2.0 – The Aftermath

Faster connections, more users and less compatibility seems to be the big result of the Web 2.0 movement. I love all the new functions that javascript allows, but Ajax has been over utilized for many users and new mediums. Cellphones, PDAs and small form factor computers are becoming more and more popular. Screen resolutions have gotten bigger and smaller at the same time. Website that cater to the widescreen LCD and the cellphone screen while maintaining a site that still works without javascript are the real winners from Web 2.0

Web 3.0 – Back to the Basics

The good thing about all the problems that occurred with Web 2.0 is they’re all fixable using Web 1.0 methods.  .htaccess can be used to redirect screen resolutions to the proper pages. CSS is a very effective method to achieve most of the goals people are now using Ajax to make (with a few notable exceptions).  Many times, web sites are using Ajax when CSS would accomplish the same goals have a greater compatability across browsers and still render in cell phones and browsers without javascript enabled.  Web 3.0 needs to be about usability and content and not about new features, Flash and landing pages. With a few simple changes to , Web 3.0 could be the next greatest internet revolution and the users will be the ones seeing the benefits.