What will be the next Web? A prediction
What will be the next Web? A prediction
Gutenberg’s printing press was a major technological advanced that made it possible for the (initially quite rich) commoner to publish affordably. Books became affordable “soon” after and knowledge could spread further, faster and more accurately.
The Web has had comparable effect: it allows me to publish the content you are reading right now. I can reach thousands of people daily (and I do) at a minimal cost.
What these things have in common is that they made something that was once only available to very rich institutions, available to everyone. This is when meaningful revolutions happen. This is when technology people win, this is where technology researchers have to be.
It’s sure that infinite storage will change things but will this really be the next big thing? It’s a support for a future infrastructure. What will be the big thing: the support in itself or the thing that use this support? Internet, the mass of information that compose this Internet will always grow and grow faster with this infinite storage thing. But, we already have many problems to handle this mass of information. We have problems to store them (not in term of storage space) and we have problems to search them. So, will the next big thing be the thing that will help us to effectively search through this mass of information?
If the answer is yes, then I thing that it’s a little bit fast to say that semantic web could not be the next big thing.
