The web isn't just a communications medium, it's a services medium.
From Wikipedia’s entry on Web 3.0
This may fall into the obvious category but…I have been thinking more about why I don’t think we’re in the communications industry anymore and it occurred to me that the Internet is different (it gets slightly better I promise).
Seen through one lens, the Internet is simply the latest in a string of communications revolutions that started with the invention of language and progressed through the invention of printing, radio, television and finally the web.
With each new invention, our ability to communicate has been enhanced. Our reach has been extended, we have added images and video and finally we have created the ability to communicate back. So it’s easy, therefore, to view the Internet as a continuation of this same evolution. To view it as another communications revolution.
In one sense, that’s clearly true. The web has enhanced and enriched our ability to communicate radically. However, as the quote above demonstrates, the true power of the Internet is not simply as a communications medium – it is as a services medium. In fact, I think the real revolution, the real disruption if you will, is that this is the first time in history that there is a broadcast medium for disseminating more than ideas.
A medium for distributing actions.
The future is coming more quickly than we might want. Already Web 2.0 is becoming passé in some quarters. One of the largest VCs -Kleiner Perkins – has stopped investing in Web 2.0 startups. During a recent townhall, one of their partners Randy Komisar said, “Web 3.0 is interesting. We think about what are new behaviors that aren’t being serviced by Web 2.0.”
While some are dismissing this as more hype-mongering and arguing over semantics, I think it’s a sign that more people are questioning the limiting view of the web as simply a tool for communications.