Web 2.0 and 3.0

posted by Marty Menard on November 12, 2006

At one point in my career at Intel, I was in the thick of Web. 1.0. In 1995 Intel “discovered’ the World Wide Web after the Intel Pentium FDIV situation woke us up to the fact that how we compute and communicate was changing. The move to clicks from bricks was all the rage. At Intel we built intel.com, Support.com, Developer. com, etc. as a segmented means of communcating with our audiences. Web 1.0 was all about getting results without any real rules. We had a ton of skeptics inside the company asking tough questions like, “Who is going to care about this in a year?” “Why are spending money to convert documents to .pdf? Can anyone even read a .pdf file?” “The internet is great for companies selling stuff, but why do we care?”

I’m sure that many companies had this and simliar conversations. Today, we know that the web is the way we do work. Checking for the weather, getting a map, ‘googling’ someone or something, buying stuff (I bought a 50th annivesary Corvette on ebay!) is how we live today. Can anyone who has access to the internet really say that they no longer need it? I couldn’t live without it

So now we are beginning Web 2.0 (interactive) and shortly Web. 3.0 (the MOADB*). For example in Japan and Korea and part of Europe, consumers can buy gas, soda/candy thru vending machines, and even pay for parking with their web enabled cell phones. While the ability to purchase gas at my local Safeway isn’t possible yet, I bet it will some day soon.

And Web. 3.0 promises the ability to perform unbelieveable search and query that not only gives improved results, but also learns how we think. Some naysayers believe Web. 3.0 isn’t possible. I think those people will also be wrong, as were the folks who thought 1.0 was a fad.

So, are we going to have the same questions about 2.0 and 3.0 as we did with 1.0? If history is any indicator of the future, absolutely. IT will be challenged on the business value of investing and it’s our job to describe how it will enable our businesses to be better and faster. Those that are early adopters will win market share, those that debate will fall behind.

We haven’t talked about the web in IT at Intel in some time. I think it’s actually a strategic inflection point for us that needs some discussion, I plan to talk to the CIO about it this week. But before I do, I wondered if the the readers (or the other bloggers, hint, hint!) had any thoughts about how the web is going to change Intel?

I’d like to hear from more of you, and help us get ready for the inevitable questions.

Good Computing Marty

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