New uses, organization, and currencies of Web 3.0

Modern communication systems today are continuously evolving, increasing their global reach and breaking all traditional boundaries.  This phenomenon is pushing along with it the frontiers of the World Wide Web, which must in turn respond to this challenge by undergoing profound changes and intensive technological innovation.  Professor Pierre Lévy described his work involving "tagging" web content with Uniform Semantic Locators to provide link-related information that is automatically translated into the user's language.  According to the professor, this is one solution bridging the communication gaps that are present between different languages which in themselves serve a static medium.  Cross- or interdisciplinary teams of web scientists will continue to explore and create different solutions to such problems.

Another challenge is the classification of information as pertinent, authentic and accurate.  The Google search engine and the Wikipedia online encyclopedia are examples of tools which use different methods of sorting information.  Their widespread acceptance by users all over the world is testimony that they provide important benefits, but there are also some associated drawbacks.  For example, Google uses a unique ranking system which makes the results of a web query more helpful, useful, or important to the user.  Several other issues associated with this search engine should be taken into account however: the programming is opaque due to commercial secrecy, it uses the same algorithms for all topics and censorship is possible because it is a centralized search engine.  On the other hand, Wikipedia has taken an egalitarian approach to information sharing and validation and any individual with access to the internet can contribute and edit data.  Although the quality and authenticity of the data presented may not be always consistent or reliable, it appears that the greater the number of people contributing to a topic or section, the better and more accurate the data tends to be.  A tool, such as Wikiscanner, allows tracing of authors and tracking of changes and this improves the quality of the end product by reducing abusive entries. Unlike Google, Wikipedia does not classify or rank information as helpful, useful, or important. Wikipedia is not only an end in itself, but might provide a useful structural model upon which to base the next version of the Web.

Currently, sites link with one another without necessarily considering pertinence or degree of importance. With classification of importance, the Internet can become a crystallization of collective intelligence, with related data linked appropriately. This would change the utilization of the data and, although no one can predict exactly what Web 3.0 will accomplish, the important thing is what we do with it.

The speakers anticipated that the web will break down barriers between disparate and distant communities if it can accommodate the increasing numbers of people in the less economically developed nations who are already using mobile phones. This can allow the people living in remote areas in the developing world to join international "virtual" social networks. One speaker suggested that geopolitical changes are also possible due to collective intelligence and with increased human interaction, "one must think differently about bombing others if he/she knows them."

One also thinks differently about remuneration in a virtual world. The current broadly used system of monetary payment for services and information is likely to change and other non-monetary "currencies" have already come into existence.  For example, value is added when one duplicates information by sharing it on the internet. A barter system allows time, information, or expertise to become currency. Value is created when customized marketing information is gathered based on an individual's choices.

Many questions arise from the ongoing revolution in communications systems: What are we going to do with this developing collective intelligence? How can data be classified and kept secure? Will "intelligence" even be the appropriate term to use in the future?