All aside, I think there is a conceptual component missing here. I admit that I don’t know what features need to be added to make the web feel more complete. However, what seems to make the web feel alive these days is quite simply, end-users! By that, I mean the concept of “The smartest guy in the room is everybody”. Companies make the concept and business plan, outsource the dev work to India or Canada, and then have bloggers work on the word of mouth, but eventually end-users manage and organize the contents and make it lively. YouTube, MySpace, Flickr, and so on all have these components.

The central idea of collective intelligence or the Wisdom of Crowds is at work these days. The most effective sites have no boundaries and are happy to work with each other even if they are in competition. I agree that such companies may not answer questions but they do solve some problems. Those problems might not be a concern to a father who is worried about his child safety on the internet, or a corporate executive who’s trying to get the most out of online Ad business. But those are the problems of little Johnny who was born with a mouse in his hand. Google, Apple, MySpace, YouTube attracted little Johnny. Microsoft and Yahoo didn’t. Little Johnny has found Apple and Google “intelligent” and on the other hand, Microsoft and Yahoo have lost on the “concept of cool” as far as Johnny is concerned. What little Johnnies ask next, ought to be Web 3.0!

What would be Web 3.0? That’s the question many seem to ask these days. Before getting to that question, there are some serious doubts about the premise that Web 2.0 ever existed! However, regardless of terms and definitions and looking beyond Search and the market share, some companies have profoundly changed the way we think about the Web in recent years!

Conventional Internet portals like Yahoo, MSN, and AOL (i.e. YMA) have been conventionally the place where people go to read things – and in occasion do some random interactive tasks where there was a strong dependency on what that portal has to offer. In some cases, Web services tried to do the same way of conventional business electronically and some of them ended up being a big catalog where the actual service provider was someone else. It was an interesting concept after all, but not interesting and exciting enough to sustain.

Engineering perspective of Web 1.0 is “There is http, let’s share our contents”!

YMA had anticipated Portals and Internet Access win in the long run because it creates end-user dependency. On the other hand, Google created a platform where people dominantly go to do things. Google redefined the concept of Web Search as a powerful tool for everyone and monetized it handsomely. Successful platforms tend to be something that makes others successful and empowered. For instance Google offers ~75% of the revenue and ISVs like that a lot.

In my opinion, if Web 2.0 ever existed it has been the evolutionary idea of empowering users to create and share contents as well as building communities. The most important change we’re witnessing is that Internet has become a place where people go to read, write, and do things. RSS feeds are perfect example of profound sharing, MySpace is a great tool for building community and making personal web-sites, and Wiki based platforms are where users can add contents on the fly. For these reasons, some normal users miscategorize Web 2.0 as disruptive!

Engineering perspective of Web 2.0 is “There is http and SOAP/ REST/ APIs, let’s share our contents and functions”!

Just like other highlights of internet era, Web 3.0 ought to mean different things to different businesses. Whether it’s a life-changing experience, or about the concept of on-demand service, or even mobility and emerging markets, the survival of a platform turns on its ability to get all sides on board.  This often results in pricing patterns that do not fit traditional market rules. There are three types of multi-sided platform markets …

                                                                            To be continued …

Google releases product early and often. They try to fail fast. They have a healthy disrespect for the impossible. A healthy disrespect for the impossible means you can take risks but you have to make sure your risk-taking will follow productive avenues. These merits are being practiced in Google Lab.

Dell branded homepage on Google was released almost a week ago and it will be the default homepage for new DELL PCs and laptops. There are some talks that Google Pack will be preinstalled on new Dells before the end of the year – right beside the already installed Google desktop where they are capitalizing on the value of default.

This is similar to MSN-DELL partnership on DellNet or MSN-Bell Canada partnership on Sympatico. Technology analysts have interpreted this move as Google’s inclination towards portal. Current communication personalized page is another example of such effort.

I disagree with the notion that Google has a tendency towards portal! Google is capitalizing on its excellence in operating where capacity planning for colossal additional traffic is just a piece of cake. The development of a global backbone network by Google is yet another indication of an effort to expand bandwidth. Quite rightly so, Google is investing on platform and software that makes others successful.