What's the Difference Between Web 1.0, 2.0 and 3.0?

Last week, I attended the Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco (March 31-April 3, 2009). I found the name 2.0 interesting because many at the Expo have started referring to Web 3.0. If you are scratching your head and still trying to figure out what Web 1.0 means, don't worry. Even those in the industry are still trying to figure it out. While there is no universally agreed-upon definition, here is a brief guide to the terminologies of the web:

Web 1.0: "The Information Web". Content is mostly static, not dynamic. Companies started creating websites, which were basicially digitized brochures. Mostly one-way and one-to-many communication pattern (similar to ads on television). Finding information or determing which products/services to purchase involves search engines (Google, Yahoo etc.) or specific websites offering "expert" opinions.

Web 2.0: "The Social & Personal Web". People wanted to contribute and technology made it easier to do so. As a result, Blogging, Podcasts, Wikis and social sites became popular. Interactive features, such as comment boxes and voting widgets started springing up everwhere. Finding information or determining which products/services to purchase involves looking at recommendation sites based on "the crowd's opinion" (such as Yelp and TripAdvisor) and asking friends through social sites (Facebook, MySpace etc.).

Web 3.0: "The Semantic Web". Basically, it's Web 2.0 on steroids. As more and more people join an ever expanding array of social networks, easily managing all of those networks becomes crucial. Companies are starting to offer solutions for this problem, such as push-button updates (i.e. you update your status once and it populates this information across all of your social networks at the same time).

While the world wide web is rapidly evolving, Web 3.0 won't necessarily kill off what came before. We will still be Googling for a long time to come.