The original article
is the collaborative work of three Academics (all of the Computer Engineering
Department of the University of Isfahan, Iran). Aghaei, S., Nematbakhsh, M. A.
and Farsani, H. K. endeavoured in this paper to present the evolutionary
trajectory of the World Wide Web from its beginning as Web 1.0 to Web 4.0.
Their work as it appeared in the
International Journal of Web & Semantic Technology (IJWesT) Vol 3, No. 1.
January 2012 is here summerised.
The
work began with an introduction. Presenting what the Web is, in an attempt to
properly situate the subject matter amongst the variegated Internet family. They
made a strong emphasis on the position of the Web: its prominence amongst the
parts that make up, but not wholly all there is to the Internet. At its creation in 1989, the web - as a
cognitive or taught tool (Web 1.0), it has witnessed a lot of transformation to
a tool and medium of communication (Web 2.0), as a net-worked digital cooperative
tool (Web 3.0), and to an integrative tool as its seen in Web 4.0.
Through
these four generations of the Web, a clear pattern of increasing complexity and
use has been the history and hallmark of the Web.
Web
1.0
Beginning 1089 as Tim Burner-Lee’s project to create a
common information space where people through networked computers could
communicate by use of a Universal Document Identifier (UDI), providing a
read-only Web. It employed the use of static HTMLpages that were regularly
updated providing text-based information that made linking weak. Its protocols
were the HTTP, HTML and the URL.
Web
2.0
Came 2004 and Dale Dougherty advanced the process to
what he described as Web 2.0. In his words, it was the “… the business
revolution … caused by the moved to the internet platform… build applications
that harness network effects…”
Working the faults of of its
predecessor (Web1.0), it sought to make people the hub that drive its
improvement, i.e. it gave people more interactivity over and against less
control by the Web. This was in essence the result of incorporating
“flexible web designs, creative reuse,
updates and collaborative content creation”. It also included blogs, RSS feeds,
wikis, mashups, tags, folksonomy, tag clouds and social networking tools. These
were made possible by the development of several tools like the asynchronous
JavaScript, XML (AJAX), Flex as well as Google Web tool kit. These features and
tools made the adoption of Web 2.0 more acceptable.
Web
3.0
This improvement of the Web, evolved from the need to
link defined web structures for animation and reuse in other applications. Its
aptly described as a semantic web due to its ability to demonstrate things in a
manner understandable, readable and useable by the computer and machines.
Web
3.0 essentially acts like a ‘large doc store’ of sorts in which all files
within the doc store are linked to each other. The basic layers of this sematic
doc-store-like web are; Unicode and URL, XML, Resonance Description Framework
(RDF), RDF schema, Ontology, Logic and Proof and Trust.
Web
4.0
This
version of the web, also known as WebOS, was “still an … idea in progress” as
at the time of the authors presented their work. Described as a symbiotic web,
its difference from its preceding concept was to allow a kind of a two-way
relationship between computers and human. It also allows for the building of
mind control interphase between the computer and man.
Its
compelling power was how it enables a rich participation in online networks
ensuring global transparency, governance, distribution and collaborations.
The
Web 4.0 tends towards achieving a mind of its own.
Conclusions
The paper succeeded in explaining the evolutionary
history of the web through its first four generations, with detailed
differences between the generations. It advanced
the need for further work on the broader research on the semantic web and its
issues.
weldone Prof.
ReplyDeleteHahahaha. Thanks for reading, but why dress me in borrowed & oversized robes? ;)
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