There are a few details we need to keep in mind as we explore Web 3.0 technologies. First, the concept is not new. Jeffrey Zeldman, one of the early developers of Web 1.0 and 2.0, wrote a blog post back in 2006 about his support for Web 3.0. And conversations on this topic began as early as 2001.

Web 3.0 will be born out of the natural evolution of old generation web tools combined with advanced technologies such as artificial intelligence and blockchain, as well as the interconnectivity between users and increasing Internet penetration. Thus Internet 3.0 is an upgrade of its predecessors: Web 1.0 and 2.0.

Web 1.0 (1989-2005)

Web 1.0, also called the static Internet, was the first and most reliable Internet in the 1990s, despite offering access to only a limited amount of information with little or no user interaction. In those days, personal user pages or even commenting on articles were not common.

Web 1.0 had no algorithms to filter Internet pages, making it extremely difficult for users to find the information they were looking for. Simply put, it was like a one-way highway with a narrow walkway, where content creation was done by a select few and guides were needed to navigate.

Web 2.0 (2005-present).

The arrival of the Social Web, or Web 2.0, made the Internet much more interactive thanks to advances in web technologies such as Javascript, HTML5, and CSS3. They made interactive web platforms like YouTube, Facebook, and Wikipedia possible.
This was the first step towards the era of social networking and user-generated content. Data could now be distributed and shared across platforms and applications.

The toolset in this Internet era was invented by a number of programmers and innovators like the aforementioned Jeffrey Zeldman.

Web 3.0 (still to come)

Web 3.0 is the next stage in the evolution of the Internet. It will make the Internet more “smart” through the power of artificial intelligence systems.

Tim Berners-Lee once said that the semantic web is designed for automated interaction between systems, people, and home devices. In it, humans and machines will simultaneously and equally participate in content creation and decision-making processes. This will enable the creation and distribution of customized content directly to each Internet user.

Key Features of Web 3.0

To truly understand the next phase of the Internet, we need to look at four key features of Web 3.0:

• Ubiquity
• Semantic Web
• Artificial intelligence
• 3D graphics