Web evolution

by Morten Goodwin Olsen

The World Wide Web (www.) has evolved continually since its launch in the 1990s. As a web, it has been constantly growing to involve users on it. The trend is to have everybody involved. The evolution of the web is usually divided into three parts: Web 1.0, Web 2.0 and Web 0.3 (Some authors are talking about Web 4.0, 5.0 and X.0)

Web 1.0 was the first launching of the www. and it offered static web pages available worldwide in different languages. Almost every single firm, then, launched their own web page as to gain an image online but there was no interaction. People used to manage their few online interactions via e-mail and they used to surf the net for getting information and downloading some contents. There were also open chats for real time online conversations with the particularity of anonymity.

Web 1.0 evolved into web 2.0, a web oriented towards the user. Web 2.0 offers the opportunity to the users of expressing themselves in many different contexts. Users can now have their own space because many web pages offer it for free. Many static web pages have changed their format to an interactive one, so, users can comment on them. Blogs, wikis, social networks are tools people now have for expressing themselves and in some cases for making money.

From the experience of web 2.0 of users interacting in the web and not just receiving information but producing information, the web evolved into web 3.0, a not so evident web version. Since web 2.0 has been a success for the companies to make advertisement, the web has evolved to the semantic web. The web now analyses the users’ interactions to offer them options of what they are searching and talking.