I'm very passionate about the role information and communications technology plays in our society and I'm glad to engage in the debate. I thought I would open with a blog that's based on the response I give when people ask me "what is Web 2.0?" I always point out that the focus of Web 2.0 is not on technologies and features, but more on the nature of the dynamic between the human and the computer. And these days I should probably chuck in the ubiquitous "cloud."
To illustrate some of the concepts, I will be using mapping/location applications as an example. Ever since one of our ancestors stood up straight and started looking down at a 2-D surface, maps have been a concept we all understand, and have tended to be suitable for early adopters -- be they Norse Vikings, Chinese Astronomers, or a Generation Y customer looking for the nearest pizza shop.
The first widely adopted incarnation of the "World Wide Web" (remember when you had to use the full name?) was based on the ability to render content to a screen and use hyperlinks to navigate between different sets of content. The key aspect of this was that Web users had to choose associations between data and navigate a path based on their interpretation. And it was people who had to draw the connections between two sets of content to come up with useful information.
To apply this to the mapping context, an early Web user had to do something like the following:
Go to a directory listing site
Choose the link for the category they were looking for
If they were lucky, search for a name, or scroll through extremely long lists
Select a listing, and write down the address
Go to a different site where images of maps were kept
Search or look up an index for a street name to find out which map page it was on
Select a map page
Use the map coordinates to find the street on the image and try to figure out roughly where the location would be
If they wanted directions, link through several pages of map images trying to trace back to your place
Wow. Did we really do all that once?
Some people reading this probably never experienced that process. For them, Web 2.0 style interaction is all they have known. From my perspective, the fundamentals of Web 2.0 have been around for a long time. However, it is really the maturation of social awareness and enhanced interaction between humans, computers, and the network that has led to this re-branding of the Internet platform.
The key change in this new version of the Internet is that the data retrieved by Web resources can now be structured by programmers. Standardization of XML has enabled application developers to access that structured data and develop associations that can be processed with computers. This obviates the need for a human to write something down and go to another location to find the correlating piece of data.
Finally, I wanted to postulate a little on what all this might mean for the next generation of Web applications -- Web 3.0 (ugh), Semantic Web, or whatever you call it. The big paradigm shift that is going to change how computers and humans interact is when intent and meaning can be represented in standard forms that are understood by computers.
In this situation, applications as we understand them will become fundamentally altered. Rather than having a static set of services that are invoked and rendered to present information, platforms will become composers, retrieving the information you want, rendered in the way you want and, most importantly, monetized in the way you permit.
So what does this mean to our mapping example? Speculating a little bit, a mapping interaction might look something like this:
Ask computer/device to "Find Restaurant"
Computer looks up ontology resources, interprets "Restaurant" as a type of "Place" having a collection of "Styles"
Computer looks up "Restaurant Styles" in your profile information
Computer knows "Place" is a location and asks the "cloud" for a directory service based on your preferences -- i.e., you want to be able to see ratings, you're happy to see ads to pay for use, you have a preferred mapping application to use, etc.
Computer receives your interface definition and invokes a directory request with information from your profile and current location
Computer receives locations and information about local restaurants that suit your taste
Computer renders a map showing locations of restaurants, with advertising along bottom to support the cost of the request
User eats at the best ranked restaurant of their favorite style after one click
All of this seems very similar to what can be done today, and to be honest, a good programmer could go and build an application that does this similar processing with lots of framework API and translation functions. But in the next version of information processing on the Web, this programming should not be required. People will use their preferred composition containers -- probably much like browsers today -- and ask for what they want.
Networked systems will be able to leverage their massive distributed computing power to understand intent and meaning. The next generation of the Web will be able to deliver unprecedented -- and unimaginable -- information processing capability into the hands of every person with a device. We just have to be careful of what we ask for. Anyone remember Skynet?
— Ilya Joel-Pitcher, Principal consultant at Infosys
I agree that what I have described from a user experience perspective is able to implemented by a good programmer and using information feeds available today.
The critical difference is the the API supporting these applications are predetermined and conform to expected schemas. But what happen when you take your device to China, or Africa, or Australia.
The composer needs to be able to search for most appropriate services that suit your needs, putting together a unique application instance for you and your context. For this to work, the standards and practices of the Semantic Web need to become ubiquitous, not just implemented in pockets as the early semantic efforts are likely to be.
However, it is good to see more applications like the example provided trying to understand customer intention first.
with regards to social networking functionality, I think definitely, with the most obvious example just being able to highlight my friends favorties/preferences and the more advanced being able to use directed graphs based on social networks to optimise the experience on multiple levels. But that's a big topic for another time.
I think one key point overlooked in the semantic space is the importance of the URI. More specifically, how much data we retain in the URI. This quality is what I have been calling Isomorphic URIs -- and how isomorphic a URI is depends on its ability to describe what is being returned in html/xml/etc.
Simple changes to how sites treat URIs and we could begin to actually use websites as contextual DBs with generic interfaces. A lot of this has to do with an underlying search mechanism as well...
Snip::
Resource Request and Return Relationships
A resource request (REQ) as a URI and a resource return (RET) as data
will express an isomorphic exchange where elements of a URI can be
correspondingly mapped unto the returned data structure and where a
data’s structure can be correspondingly mapped onto the elements of a
URI – simply, the process must be reversible. Many transformations
between the original REQ and RET may occur, though a corresponding
mapping must largely be retained to qualify as an isomorphic exchange.
Today, many such corresponding mappings of URIs and data are
implemented on the internet — however, the strength of isomorphism and
the methods in which the data is mapped varies wildly. The varying
degrees of isomorphism and data mapping, though usually URI-compliant,
make it difficult to reliably request data from a given resource
without intimate knowledge of how that resources is structured…
I like your topic.It is where we (at Compsim) play.I want to focus on one of your sentences:“The big paradigm shift that is going to change how computers and humans interact is when intent and meaning can be represented in standard forms that are understood by computers.”I suggest that “we humans” have a great deal of difficulty communicating, evenbetween ourselves.Each of us has embedded biases that have been learned over time.Every word we exchange is subject to the interpretation of both the sender and the receiver.There was a children’s game I remember where an idea was transferred from child to child through a string of children; each child interpreting the idea from the previous child.The last child presented the idea to the group.The final interpretation almost never matched the original idea.So I would suggest that one major problem is how to document understanding.Understanding has to do with how information is to be interpreted.A characteristic of this kind of information is that it has to be considered in context.It assumes value by how it is integrated with other information items.Another characteristic of understanding is how one is using the information; i.e. the kind of problem being addressed.Real value will be provided when the internet addresses “right-brain” problems.“Left brain” problems have been addressed for years, somewhat successfully: find information, manipulate information.Questions about “What does the information mean?With this information, how do I ____?With this information, how should I allocate ____?…. have yet to be addressed, except by humans. This automation of understanding is not just an internet issue.A number of international companies are looking for ways to build robots that will operate autonomously (mainly to care for an aging population).Military organizations around the world are developing autonomous weapons that will make life and death decisions on their own.When these devices are mass produced, it will no longer be acceptable to accept human levels of error.This means that a means of defining “understanding” must be provided that is 100% explainable and auditable (so the understanding can be corrected if it is in error).We, at Compsim http://www.compsim.com, feel that we have developed a technology which addresses this part of the problem: KEEL (Knowledge Enhanced Electronic Logic) provides a way to capture, test, package, audit, and explain human-like reasoning that can be deployed in devices and software applications.The KEEL “dynamic graphical language” allows dynamic, non-linear models to be created without requiring a mathematician or software engineer.It focuses on “right-brain” interpretation of information and decisions and actions that might be required.KEEL is platform and architecture independent.You can distribute intelligence just like you can distribute people in an organization; wherever you want to be most effective.For example: your comments about user preferences is just another set of input information items that would be combined into the computer’s reasoning model.Other information could come from a database (what, where, trends).Additional information could come from sensors (weather conditions when considering outdoor seating at the restaurant).The understanding model would interpret the importance of the inter-related information items and balance alternatives to provide the “best” answer (note best vs. correct).I would suggest that future issues will be related to trust (what information is correct or contaminated) and who has the best embedded expertise (reasoning models).This is similar to how the “best” human expert is the “best” at interpreting information and determining how to respond, no matter what objective is being pursued.
Well, your answer is turning me into a believer. So, I am learning more about Web 3.0 starting from this iconic Web 2.0 entity. Thank you for the enlightment.
I think the challenge you are raising is the challenge of interfaces to these composer type of containers.
I agree with you that I dont always feel like 1 or 2 types of food. However, I see it as a simlple matter of being able to put your query as Find Springrolls.
A proper semantic web solution to this can resolve springrolls to being food with an attribute or link of Chinese and pass that information across to the appropriate directory service in place of your preferences.
This does also raise some interesting questions about accepted "best-practice" for inflating the meaning of a request. If someone provides additional information such as "Spring Rolls" does the composer;
Use the Style of Chinese in place of preferences;
Use the Style of Chinese + preferences; or
Just use the preferences.
I think the industry will be consumer driven in this regard and rapidly align with some common sense rules.
Ultimately, this should enable more choice to the user, with the user able to have preferences if they want, or not. If you feel like something specific, assert it with your intention. If your open to new experiences, you can assert that in your intent too.
I can envisage a little feature on these things called "Surprise me" which is like an override of your preferences/tastes to see what happens
An interesting question. First off, I should qualify my answer with the fact that I am an optimist. So people may want to take my responses with a pinch of salt.
With regards to when we will see these "applications", I think that we need to consider a new concept. I think we are more likely to see the rise of composition containers which can generate unique, once-off experiecnes based upon a number of factors - presence, network services, device capabiliites, etc. And I think these are a long way off.
However, we are seeing a maturity of tooling around web 2.0 enabling mash-ups, etc that provide ever increasing sophistication in "guessing" what bits of data you are trying to associate. What is missing is a set of standards for representing meaning that platform builders can rely on.
It is going to be the standards which can represent meaning and associate intent to methods which will be critical. Much like the basic syntax of XML has permitted the web 2.0 exploistion, the consistent representation of semnatics will enable the leap onto the Semantic Web.
But back to the question - how far away is that? There is certainly pockets of research into these standards in academic institutions and product companies which are playing around with possibilities and some of that effort is being organised by the W3C. RDF, OWL and XML seem to be the emerging leaders for the syntax standards for Semantic Web and is stablising as the basis for SW. To support the academics and product R&D open-source and commercial product tools are emerging.
For the scenario, the semantic standards will have to be bedded down and penetrate into web service standards, becoming a ubiquitous way of expressing data. This is probably on the 5+ year horizon given how fast dominant companies tend to move in this space. Maybe some new start ups will emerge to take ownership of the Find verb away from Google based on their research but I would be surprised if it could be commercialised on a large scale any time soon.
Companies doing this now? I would say the leading adopters of this work would be the leading commercial search platforms (not suprisingly) with companies like Endeca and FastSearch doing lots in this space.
I am very interested to find out from the online community if anyone is starting applying these concepts to run-time composition
This brings up another important point. To get better contexual understanding of what the user may want, the computer is going to have to track and analyze more user data than ever before. Right now, people are throwing a hissy fit whenever any data is tracked, but I believe that it will become the norm to track massive amounts of user data in the future.
Perhaps the tools and user information database needs to be a local resource instead of a web resource. Then Google (or any other company) need not know what you are up to but a tool they develop can still have knowledge of you and your patterns (in order to predict your requests before you make them) and/or offer other helpful contextual information. This local "database" would have to be pretty secure though, as it would be a MASSIVE target for hackers and other malware authors.
the concept of having your personality stored on computer/network is the basis of this Web 3.0 thingy. (It is almost the same with Web 2.0, I know...) While everybody seems to be thrilled with that fact, how it makes your life easier, how machines can take intelligent guesses about which restaurant you want to eat in, etc...; few people deal with the fact that "making your life easier" equals to "incapacitate you of making decisions" in some cases.
That might seem a little harsh, but for someone who has a strong idea about the place he wants to eat in (e.g., he would like spring rolls NOW, but he usually eats Italian and Mexican food, so his profile contains those), the Web3 version of picking a restaurant is surely irritating.
My point is that you should have the choice of using your mind and some help from the computer/Web or only the computer/Web. This is like having the choice of skipping an online ad, when you checks your favorite new portal, or the choice of not using the Flash version of a site if you are interested in content not design. (OK, these examples might be weak, but you may get my point).
So if you prefer it Web1-style, you shoud be able to do so. The choice should be yours and yours only.
intriguing indeed !. Would love to know more on this and also how it applies to complex issues such as healthcare ie diseases and medication. Secondly the complexity of language ...
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