The Inovis Blog

Web 2.0 is arguably one of the most talked about IT concepts around and the hype hasn’t even started to cool yet. So why is Web 3.0 getting press already? Wikipedia, which itself is a web 2.0 app, defines Web 3.0 as a term that has been coined with different meanings to describe the evolution of Web usage and interaction along several separate paths. These include transforming the Web into a database, a move towards making content accessible by multiple non-browser applications, the leveraging of artificial intelligence technologies, the Semantic web, and the Geospatial Web. 

For collaborative scenarios, the Semantic web is the enabler of the web as database and platform for AI and as such deserves to be looked at more closely.  So how does ecommerce in a Web 3.0 world change the complexion of the supply chain?

Sir Tim Berners-Lee (a co-founder of the World Wide Web) originally expresses the vision of the semantic web as follows:

“I have a dream for the Web [in which computers] become capable of analyzing all the data on the Web – the content, links, and transactions between people and computers. A ‘Semantic Web’, which should make this possible, has yet to emerge, but when it does, the day-to-day mechanisms of trade, bureaucracy and our daily lives will be handled by machines talking to machines. The ‘intelligent agents’ people have touted for ages will finally materialize.”

Lest you think its still a dream, take note, there is already a concept of the Semantic SOA which extends the concept of SOA. “It leverages rich, machine-interpretable descriptions of data, services, and processes to enable software agents to autonomously interact to perform critical mission functions. SSOA is technically founded on three notions: (1) the principals of Service Oriented Architecture (SOA), (2) Standards Based Design (SBD), and (3) semantics based computing.”

 There are also early adopters. “Where semantic web technologies have found a greater degree of practical adoption, it has tended to be among core specialized communities and organizations for intra company projects.   The practical constraints toward adoption have appeared less challenging where domain and scope is more limited than that of the general public and the world wide web.

Scripts have been written to monitor eBay auctions (another Web 2.0 app) and bid $1 higher at the last second.  What happens when there are no users, just scripts running?  Wall Street has a similar problem now with automated trading. Trading curbs were created and gaming logic within trading programs to prevent “artificial behavior”.

I have been told that a well known government agency has system agents that monitor Google for clusters of searches related to certain diseases and their symptoms. The emergence of these clusters often foreshadow outbreaks even before peoples seek medical attention.

The fridge that orders food, the house that calls the plumber, the car that calls the service mechanic all via the web. As our devices get smarter their ability to self manage becomes greater, which is inversely proportional to the need for call centers staffed by people, and aggravated consumers. Still don’t see the advantage?

Web 3.0 predicts the ability of computers, not humans, to interact in communities by sharing information and making decisions collaboratively across the web. What happens when these communities become trading communities? POS agents update inventory which is seen by the supplier agent which generates a work order and submits it to the hub host agent for review based on sales and consumer trend data. The host agent approves the work order which becomes a PO. The vendor MRP system sees the PO and factors it into demand planning. The raw material supplier agent sees the new demand plan and generates its own work order, and so on, all without human intervention.

Is this finally the “frictionless business community” we’ve all heard about? Will Web 3.0 change how we think about collaboration? Only The Shadow knows!