EU bids to dominate future nebulous buzzword

'We don't know what Web 3.0 is, but we must have it'

By Chris Williams • Get more from this author

Posted in Government, 29th September 2008 14:14 GMT

Webcast: Building Applications for the 21st Century

The European Commission has called out for help on how it can "put Europe into the lead of the transition to Web 3.0". It doesn't seem sure what web 3.0 is or could be in the future - it just knows it wants it.

To that end, it's today launched a public consultation inviting opinions on this forthcoming "next wave of the Information Revolution".

The promo material for the consultation is a bit thin on what web 3.0 actually is."Web 3.0 means seamless 'anytime, anywhere' business, entertainment and social networking over fast reliable and secure networks. It means the end of the divide between mobile and fixed lines," said telecoms commissioner Viviane Reding.

Does it? We thought it was something to do with meta-tagging-meta-tagging or semantics or some other network fetishists' fancy.

Whatever. Even if she's not clear what web 3.0 is, Reding knows it's going to be great, and that Europe needs to adopt crouching tiger position. "Europe has the know-how and the network capacity to lead this transformation. We must make sure that Web 3.0 is made and used in Europe," she said.

Way, way, waaay back in 2005 when we were all working out what web 2.0 was made of, El Reg ran its own consultation exercise, which determined that mash-up, social networks and wikis are made of badgers paws, stardust and otters tears. And "a great big shit sandwich".

We've been briefly tempted today to run the poll again to help out the Eurocrats, but we suspect the consensus might be broadly similar, so we really can't be bothered. So answers on a postcard to Brussels this time, please. ®

Free Download - The Reg Guide to Extended Validation