This week I gave a short presentation at a local event, Webstock Mini, in which I looked at some of the trends we’re seeing in Web Technology this year. The presentation is embedded below. I gave the term ‘Web 3.0’ a bit of a ribbing. But my overall theme was that there is indeed a difference in the products we’re seeing in 2009, compared to the ones we saw at the height of ‘Web 2.0’ (2005-08).

In 2009 we’re seeing more products based on open, structured data e.g. Wolfram Alpha. We’re seeing more real-time apps e.g. Twitter, OneRiot. And we’re seeing better filters e.g. FriendFeed (and Facebook, which copies FriendFeed – er, I mean is inspired by).
In a nutshell here are some of the new or noticeable trends that we’re seeing on the 2009 Web:
- Open data
- Structured data -> smarter
- Filtering content
- Real-time
- Personalization
- Mobile (location-based, so you could say that’s smarter use of data too)
- Internet of Things (the Web in real-world objects)
I pointed to Google’s announcement last week of Search Options and Rich Snippets as one recent example of some of the above trends.
Because this was a relatively short presentation, I didn’t go in-depth on these (and other) trends of the Web circa 2009. So we’d like to ask your help to fill in more details. Please leave a comment with your thoughts on the trends I mentioned – and what you would add. Also tell us what products you’ve seen this year that are doing something new and ‘not Web 2.0’.
I’ll do an update post later in the week, hopefully presenting a fuller look at current trends thanks to your comments.
For more on the above trends, check out these recent ReadWriteWeb posts:
- Understanding the New Web Era: Web 3.0, Linked Data, Semantic Web
- Linked Data is Blooming: Why You Should Care
- Introduction to the Real-Time Web
- 3 Models of Value in the Real-Time Web
- The Man Who Made Gmail Says Real-Time Conversation is What’s Next
Cartoon screenshot from Geek And Poke (see full cartoon in the presentation).