The Future of The World Wide Web

The World Wide Web has played an important and crucial role in the Internet since the invention of computers, helping us connect and communicate with each other regardless of our location via websites. The WWW we know today can be described as this large collection of websites that are further made up of multimedia web pages, which enables us to message, share, create and consume content such as social media posts and youtube videos.

However, the web we know today is changing drastically at a rapid pace, to a form we call Web 3.0. Before we dive into the concepts and foundations of Web 3.0, let’s talk about the previous forms of the WWW.

When WWW was first created, it was and is still known as Web 1.0. It was the first part of what now makes up a larger part of the Internet today, and was created on the basis of sharing information and content in the form of documents, where each document is identified by a URL (Uniform Resource Locator) and are to be written in a universally accepted markup language known as HTML. During the Web 1.0 phase, the majority of these documents or websites were static, they had no automated form changing the website’s content, and the content was generally retrieved from file systems rather than database systems. Furthermore, much of the documents/websites were created by a few people, while most people consumed that information, which is why it is known as the Read-Only Web.

Just 2 decades ago, a new WWW started to emerge, known as Web 2.0, or the Read-Write Web. Unlike its predecessor, Web 2.0 encouraged users of the web to start contributing by doing something as small as commenting on a post and creating user accounts, or something as big as creating documents or websites rather than remaining as idle consumers. It was also at this time that websites were the preferred medium of information exchange rather than stand-alone documents, as dynamic content was becoming increasingly necessary for efficient and reliable applications. This in turn caused database systems to become more commonly adopted. It is in this period that platforms that implemented user contribution systems took off. Some websites that have such a concept deeply embedded into its application’s code are Youtube, Facebook, and Instagram, to name a few. These websites run on user-generated content, such as Facebook posts, Snapchat snaps, Youtube videos, and Instagram reels. Much of the web we know today is still in the Web 2.0 phase, but a large portion of it is also in its fresh Web 3.0 stage.

So, now we are on Web 3.0. In short, this new phase would provide users with maximum

contribution ability via complex computer systems and incentives. But, how is Web 3.0 - the future form of web interaction - going to be any different? Is there anything else that can be achieved in Web 3.0? Well, actually, yes; a lot. Most of these changes fall into 4 categories: semantics, AI, decentralisation (return to the original concept), 3D graphics. Let’s discuss each of these points in more detail.

The first foundation layer of Web 3.0 is probably the cornerstone; a semantic web. Semantics, which deals with the meaning and emotion displayed by a message, would allow communication and connectivity over the WWW to be taken to the next level. In simple words, Web 3.0 would be one where machines are capable to analyse all data that passes through the web, therefore eventually being able to utilise the data, allowing it to generate, share, and connect content through search and analysis. The data would be created as time passes,

essentially creating this huge network of knowledge and information. This would thus allow for a more interactive and connected interaction between users and information.

As said, semantics would be closely tied with another feature of Web 3.0; machines, or more generally, artificial intelligence. If it isn’t obvious, AI refers to intelligence displayed by machines that requires a certain level of human intelligence. In Web 3.0, AI is to be implemented everywhere; as said, one area where it is going to be used is building a more semantic web, thus making it another cornerstone of Web 3.0. Other than using AI to recognise that “I love Web 3.0” and “I <3 Web 3.0” are the same (semantics), AI will be used elsewhere, in backing the infrastructure of the new WWW as well as in the content and websites themselves. Some

areas where AI will assist applications are machine learning and deep learning implemented within web apps with tools such as Tensorflow.js, serverless technology, and PaaS’ to allow developers to focus on the user interfaces. Some areas where AI is already being adopted include recommendation systems; whenever you are browsing through Amazon for, let’s say, keyboards, Amazon’s AI and ML algorithms are able to recognise patterns in your preferences, and thus show you products and services that correspond with your previous session.

3D graphics is also another key feature to be implemented in Web 3.0, where content is to develop and be presented in a more attractive, realistic, and three-dimensional manner. Such implementations are to be found all over Web 3.0, from video games to e-commerce websites, where content is delivered in a more immersive experience in the cyberworld. One common underlying concept behind a more immersive and 3D cyberworld is PWA (Progressive Web Applications) where basically, you make an application’s website and native mobile app that are virtually the same. In the past, mobile apps tended to have features and interactions that deliver

content in a more attractive and user-friendly manner. Some examples of features that PWA implements include Bluetooth connectivity, user contacts access, geolocation access, speech recognition, and immersive UIs - or 3D graphics - of course. One very recent example of a project that aims on building a 3D platform on Web 3.0 is the Metaverse, where they aim to create a virtual universe that also implements the other 3 features of Web 3.0.

Lastly, Web 3.0 aims to decentralise the WWW. The web we know today stores the majority of data in a few central storage locations. This does bring up issues, one major one being security; many security risks arise and can be used due to the fact data tends to be stored in certain centralised storage locations. An example of a security threat that is based on centralisation of data is a DNS DDOS, where the DNS - a place where all website’s URLs and corresponding IPs (think of them as a resource’s location on the WWW) are stored - is flooded with traffic, causing it to fail. On top of security issues, there is a trust between storage locations and creators and consumers, as they govern the data and access to the data requires permissions via authentication and authorisation. To decentralise the 3.1M GBs of data passing through the web every day and lower issues, there has been a rise of decentralisation protocols and technologies that decentralise certain parts of the web and its data. Most of these concepts are likely to be built on the cloud, due to its global scale, easy configuration, distribution of data across data centres and elimination of disaster recovery. One common example includes cryptocurrency, which acts as a way to distribute transaction data. With cryptocurrencies, transactions are recorded and distributed on ledgers known as the Blockchain, instead of being recorded on a banking system that is accessible only by the bank. IoT is also another leading decentralisation method, where, instead of using computers as the only machine that can compute, store and network, you bring in other devices to assist, forming this network of machines that can carry out different tasks. Such decentralisation concepts and technologies are being implemented in many websites, such as accepting cryptocurrency payments or connecting to and controlling IoT devices.

To sum Web 3.0, let’s give a quick example; imagine you have a drone delivery app. If you

wanted to create a website that would be considered to be in the 3.0 phase, semantic systems could be applied into the application’s infrastructure, as well as applying recommendation systems and chatbots using artificial intelligence and machine learning. All along, you can follow the PWA concept, where you make your website similar to a native mobile app, by coding features such as speech recognition, as well as making the user interface smooth and immersive. Lastly, the app can be decentralised (known as a Dapp), by allowing for payments in Bitcoin or Ethereum, as well as controlling deliveries of goods via configuring the IoT devices which are, in this case, drones. The application can then be!