I too feel that the whole naming convention is now too far out of control. The Web 3.0 zealots claim that it is Web 2.0 plus semantics, a ludicrous claim given semantics are ubiquitous, whether explicit or not. From a pure logical standpoint, making such claims is meaningless and only shows a lack of understanding of ontology work. Nevertheless, it likely will persist.

Semantics is the “meaning” of something. Like architecture, everything that exists can be linked to it (everything has an architecture, whether explicit or not). There is a 3 sided map of the major concepts in most semantics work which includes the referent (the object in question), the label (the name or symbol representing the meaning and linking it to the referent) and the conceptual domain (the place where we meaning exists). There is also a forth dimension of semantics which is a contextual plane. This is the set of circumstances which surrounds an object in question and can affect it’s meaning and importance.

Most semantics work gets stuck in the label region. It really should be done in the conceptual domain, which is the focus of ontology work. During the presentation I gave at Web 2.0 Expo earlier this year entitled “Ontologies for the Enterprise”, this was explained.

Since the objects and labels exist today (plain English is a natural language filled with terms or labels for just about every referent that exists), we have the tangible parts of the Semantic Web today, hence there is no logic behind advancing the version nujber of the web to Web 3.0. I think Tim has stated himself that it was a bad idea to name it Web 2.0 as it leads to this kind of foolishness and I would presume that “Web 2.0″ should not be taken literally as so many have, only in the exemplar context. What needs to be focused on is the Conceptual plane’s ontology work. While a lot of this does exist today, making it more explicit and providing concrete interfaces to such work is where semantic web work should be focused IMHO.

I vote that the web community never version the web with 3.0, 4.0 unless there is literally a non-backwards compatible version of the internet invented.

i love your perspective. to date my experience has been most people who are talking about web 3.0 and even web 4.0 don’t have a facebook profile, don’t have a blog, wouldn’t know a tweet if it bit them in the a**. see a blog post i wrote on this very subject: http://tinyurl.com/5klyfg.

i thought tim did a great job at the sf expo when he talked about how the web as a platform is not going away, user generated content is not going away, aggregating the wisdom of crowds is not going away, software above a single device is not going away nor is any other attribute that defines web 2.0.

i am interested to hear benioff speak. unlike the other nose bleed experts i cited previously, he and his company are fully immersed in web 2.0, pioneered the saas category and can certainly speak from the inside out.

as a marketing geek i will say that tim and the rest of us will have a positioning challenge ahead of us as we address the need to evolve a positioning that is rooted in something that has a visceral association to a shelf life. have tim give me a shout and i will do a pro bono project on the best way to handle this.

see you in ny!

peace out.