Ok, since I mentioned Web 2.0 some days ago, the question has been asked about it’s ultimate successor – Web 3.0 – and what it will do for us? 
Most people agree what Web 2.0 is an interactive and social web facilitating collaboration between people. This is distinct from the early web (Web 1.0) which was a static information dump where people read websites but rarely interacted with them.
But how is Web 3.0 going to be different and more importantly – improved?
The interaction between us (the users) and the new Semantic Web will be the key change in defining the new standard. How websites are created in this new Web will also be key, as new modes of interaction will need to be integrated into their design, not just improved Web 2.0!
As Daniel Nations points out: Many people believe that Web 3.0 is just around the corner. But it took over ten years to make the transition from the original web to Web 2.0, and it may take just as long for the next fundamental change to reshape the web.
The phrase “Web 2.0″ was coined in 2003 by Dale Dougherty, a vice-president at O’Reilly Media, and the phrase became popular in 2004. If the next fundamental change happened in roughly the same time span, we will be breaking into Web 3.0 sometime around 2015.
So, asking ourselves “What is Web 3.0?”, we must realize that we will experience a lot of change before it emerges. For example, not only will you have replaced the computer on your desk because it became way too slow, but you will probably have replaced its replacement for the same reason. In fact, the sum of all human knowledge may very well have doubled by then.
An interesting, but slightly dated (2009), presentation from Liam Ó Móráin at The Institute of International and European Affairs (IIEA), representing the Digital Enterprise Research Institute, discussed the work of DERI on the Semantic Web and the transition from Web 2.0 to Web 3.0.
The Semantic Web is key to Web 3.0 and the future generation in WWW technology. It envisages information from diverse sources being easily combined and used in profoundly different and more powerful ways.
The Institute of International and European Affairs (IIEA) is Ireland’s leading think tank on European and International affairs and is an independent, not-for-profit organisation with charitable status. Its extensive research programme aims to provide its members with high-level analysis and forecasts of the challenges on the global and EU policy agendas which impact on Ireland. It acts as a catalyst for new thinking, new solutions and policy options, which give its members from the private and public sector a significant competitive advantage.