I have yanked out a key segment from the TECH TALK: The Future of Search: Perspectives post that I find really poignantregarding the changing shape and form of the Web:

It is clear that in comparison to the Web of the last century, the nature of data on the Web later in this decade will be very different in the following aspects:

  • Volume of data is growing by orders of magnitudes every year
    Multimedia and sensor data are becoming more and more common.

  • Spatio-temporal attributes of data are important.

  • Different data sources provide information to form the holistic picture.

  • Users are not concerned with the location of data source, as long as its quality and credibility is assured. They want to know the result of the data assimilation (the big picture of the event).

  • Real-time data processing is the only way to extract meaningful information
    Exploration, not querying, is the predominant mode of interaction, which makes context and state critical.

  • The user is interested in experience and information, independent of the medium and the source.

Effectively, the nature of the knowledge on the Web is changing very fast. It used to be mostly static text documents; now it will be a combination of live and static multimedia, including text, data and documents with spatio-temporal attributes. Considering these changes, can the search engines developed for static text documents be able to deal with the needs of the Web? [via E M E R G I C . o r g]

No, but thisdoesn't render them uselesssince we wouldn't be at this point without the likes of Google, Yahoo! et al. But building upon the data substrate that web data oriented search engines provide is where the next batch of Information access and Knowledgediscovery solutions will carve out their space. The symbiotic relationship between Google (data)and Gurunet's Answers.com (Information and Knowledge) is one interesting example.

The Web is a distributed collection of databases that implement variety of data storage models but are commonly accessible via protocols that rely on HTTP for transport (in-bound and out-bound messages) services.These databasesincreasingly using well-formed XML for query result (data contextualization) persistence and URIs for permenant reference. 'What Database?" you might ask, "What you once called your Web Site, Blog, Wiki, etc.." my time-less reply.

When you have the database that I describe above, and a collection of entry points from which discrete or composite Web Services can be invoked available from one or more internet domains, you end up with what I prefer to call "Web 2.0" presence, or what Richard McManus describes as: "The Web as a Platform".

Here is a collection of posts I have made in the past relating to Web 2.0, note that this list is dynamic since this blog is Virtuoso based (predictably):

Free Text Search with XHTML results page (with Virtuoso generated URIs for RSS, Atom, and RDF): http://www.openlinksw.com/blog/search.vspx?blogid=127&q=web+2.0&type=text&output=html

It's also no secret that I believe that Virtuoso is a bleeding edge Web 2.0 technology platform (and more..). The URIs that I am exposing provide the foundation layer for other complimentary Web initiatives such as the Semantic Web (Web 2.0 provides infrastructure for the Semantic Web as time will show). They are also completely usable outside the realm of this blog.

BTW - Jon Udell is writing, experimenting with, and demonstrating similarconcepts across feeds within his Web 2.0 domain.

These are indeed fun times!