It must have been sometime in the middle of 2004 when the term Web 2.0 really gained momentum. A combination of the opening up of data sources, the social aspect employed against common services, the changing of economics from the dotcom boom years, the ease of development using open source technologies, and a shift in power from traditional companies to the people themselves especially in areas like journalism, among a myriad of other things – Web 2.0 was embraced by just about everyone.
But now, in less than 2 years, we’ve raced to Web 2.8 and accelerating. With everyone jumping on the bandwagon, there are now TOO many blogs, TOO many little tools, TOO easy for others to take your idea and incorporate it into their own services. How does a consumer differentiate between all the services out there, whose reported competitive differentiators are indistinguishable in the minds of the consumer? A lot of these services were also built with no business model in mind. How do they support themselves? They may be cool mashups and little desktop tools, but they aren’t big enough to drive enough revenue to support even the developer.
Sure now the Web has transformed quite a bit since the early growth days from 1995 to 2001. But I would argue what is next? The Web’s quick development time has also become it’s own way of forcing evolution to run at lightspeed. Like the frightening mutations of viruses becoming resistant to drugs faster than new ones can be developed, the Web is also transforming at an alarming rate – too alarming for those of us operating in the Web world to keep up?
Is there a Web 3.0 about to appear and what will that look like?

Remember way back when, when you could walk over to the cube next to you, talk to your buddy, argue/agree/argue/agree, and then you would walk back to your own cube and just build it?
Remember when you didn’t have to fill out forms, or get approval from upper management?
Remember when you didn’t have to write a 1000 page spec just to describe what it was you wanted to build, but instead just hashed it out on a white board and put a “Do not Erase” message on it until the project was done?
Remember when you didn’t have to notify 200 people just to start something, and then get their OK before you could launch?
Just when did we transition from “Just Do It” to “Just Talk About It Until Your Head Bursts but Never Really Get to Doing It”? Or “Just Quit Now Because It’s Too Hard to Get to Doing It?”
Too many levels of management. Too much bureaucracy. Too much distrust. Too much emphasis on individual posturing and positioning and not enough on getting the job done.
Are all companies fated to reach this point as they grow to mammoth proportions?