Web 3.0 = (4C + P + VS)

Sramana Mitra has submitted this formula for the future: Web 3.0 = (4C + P + VS).       (I have created a equation diagram for a better view of the formula)

4c = Content, Commerce, Community, Context

P = Personalization

VS = Vertical Search

Web 2.0 has been a nichy phenomenon with hundred and thousands of microcap efforts addressing one of the Cs, lately, Community being the most popular force, producing companies like MySpace, Facebook, Piczo, Xanga, and Flixster.

In Web 1.0, Commerce had been the driving force, that produced companies like Netflix,BlueNile, Amazon, and eBAY. It had also resulted in the Dotcom meltdown.

The same period that is seeing the surge of Web 2.0, has also seen a great deal of investment in Vertical Search, like Sidestep for Travel.

Personalization has remained limited to some unsatisfactory efforts by the MyYahoo team, their primary disadvantage being the lack of a starting Context. More recently, Netvibes has raised a lot of buzz, but also lacks the same organizing principle: Context.

In Web 3.0, I predict, we are going to start seeing roll-ups. We will see a trunk that emerges from the Context, be it film (Netflix), music (iTunes), cooking / food, working women, single parents, … and assembles the Web 3.0 formula that addresses the whole set of needs of a consumer in that Context.

I will make an example of what she means by Web 3.0 = (4C + P + VS).

Now you got to imagine that,

1. There is a pretty woman, dark skinned, dark haired, brown eyed. I have a distinct personal style, and only certain designers resonate with it (Context).
2. She wants her personal David Jones which carries clothes by those designers, in my size (Commerce).
3. She wants her personal Vogue magazine that covers articles about that Style, those Designers, and other emerging ones like them (Content).
4. She wants to exchange notes with others of my size-shape-style-psychographic and discover what else looks good. She also wanted a recommendation system telling her what they’re buying (Community).
5. There’s also some basic principles of what looks good based on skin tone, body shape, hair color, eye color and etc. She wants the search engine to be able to filter and match based on an algorithm that builds in this knowledge base (Personalization, Vertical Search).

Now, image the same for process as above for a short, fat man, who doesn’t really have a sense of what to wear. And he doesn’t have a wife or a girl-friend. Before Web 3.0, he could go to the personal shopper at David Jones.

With Web 3.0, the Internet will be his Personal Shopper.