The Future of The Web – In Many Dimensions

Reisman on User-Centered Media
http://www.teleshuttle.com/UCM/ucm.htm

Just when we think we understand the Web, we find it has yet another dimension. As in my recent blog post Search and the Social Web, we can think about the Social Web as a level beyond the Public Web and the Private Web. At other times, we may be thinking about Web services and the Semantic Web as a next level. As a way to think about the big picture, I suggest we think of these as particular dimensions in a Web that has many dimensions. I have a list of at least eight dimensions to think about now, and there are probably others I have missed, with more yet to surface. My current list:

1. The Content Web -- the familiar Web of HTML and other basic content. This includes various sub-dimensions -- including dimensions of ownership and control, including the Public Web and the Private Web (the Dark Web) -- and dimensions of content type, including the HTML Web, the Audio Web, and the Video Web.

2. The Social Web -- the added dimension of social networks that has become a hotbed. This applies the wisdom of Web users, both at large and in your social network -- and adding a level of what people think about content (including tagging, ratings, reputation, etc.).

3. The Semantic Web -- the added dimension of metadata, concepts, and semantic information. This facilitates understanding by both people and machines, and supports the integration of Web functions in all dimensions. It had been limited to simple metadata, but is beginning to have much bigger impacts, particularly in business services --and in the collaborative, user-generated semantics of tags, ratings, and reputation (that come from the Social Web).

4. The Service Web -- the Web of Web Services. This includes intelligent processing, transactions, computations, algorithms, grids, and informatics, that is increasingly powerful and well integrated. It brings the full power of computers into the linked mesh of the Web.

5. The Spatial Web -- the dimension of location and geography, including the Local Web. This relates primarily to geo-coordinates, and brings the power of geographic information systems into the Web. Google Maps mashups are a current hot area.

6. The Temporal Web -- the dimension of time. This has at least two subdimensions: a dimension of external time (the time the nodes are about, eg: when Julius Caeser died), and a dimension of Web time (the time the nodes took on their current content, eg: when the HBO Rome series went on the air). This includes the Web of Now (new Web pages and hot links, or the current external news) and the Web of the Past (the Wayback Machine, or external history), and the Web of the Future (forecasts).

7. The Sensor Web -- the dimension of external reality, especially reality that is automatically sensed from sensor grids and/or physical tags. It dates as far back as the Cambridge coffee pot webcam, but the real impact of massive sensor grids is still some time off.

8. The Communications Web -- the dimension of the many modes of human communications. This includes integrated messaging (phone, cell, email, SMS/MMS, IM, audio/video conferencing, etc) and multi-modal content and services (and the Web services that facilitate that).