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From "World Wide Web" to "Web Wide World" -- The Web Breaks Out of its Petri Dish

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I have noticed an interesting and important trend of late. The Web is starting to spread outside of what we think of as "the Web" and into "the World." This trend is exemplified by many data points. For example:

  • The Web on mobile devices like the iPhone. Finally it's really usable on a phone. Now it goes everywhere with us. Soon we will track our own paths on our phones as we move around, creating a virtual map of our favorite places and routes.
  • Location aware applications and services, such as Google Maps Mobile. They link physical places to virtual places on the Web.
  • The Web in cars. Dash's auto navigation units are already Web-enabled. All the other ones will be within a few years.
  • Next-generation Wi-Fi digital cameras are wifi-enabled, linking directly to camera GPS and to photo sharing and storage services. Will cloud-centric wireless cameras with zero local storage come next?
  • Web picture frames such as Ceiva bring the Web into your grandma's livingroom.
  • The Web in restaurants and stores. Your server gets your reservation on the Web from OpenTable. In-store kiosks connect to the Web to help you shop, or to bring up your online account and shopping cart.
  • The Web in your garden. GardenGro's sensor connects your garden to the Web, in order to figure out what to plant and how to cultivate it in your actual location.
  • Everything becomes trackable with RFID. Physical objects have virtual locations.
  • Sensors are connecting to the Web and popping up everywhere. For example here.
  • Plastic Logic's portable plastic reading device. The pad of paper, version 2.0.
  • The beginnings of an Internet of Things -- where every thing has an address on the Web.
  • The rise of Lifestreaming, in which everything (or much of what) one does is captured to the Web and even broadcast.
  • Progress on Augmented Reality -- instead of the physical world going into virtual worlds, the virtual world is going to flow into the physical world.

These are just a few data points. There are many many more. The trendline is clear to me.

Things are not going to turn out the way we thought. Instead of everything going digital -- a future in which we all live as avatars in cyberspace -- The digital world is going to invade the physical world. We already are the avatars and the physical world is becoming cyberspace. The idea that cyberspace is some other place is going to dissolve because everything will be part of the Web. The digital world is going physical.

When this happens -- and it will happen soon, perhaps within 20 years or less -- the notion of "the Web" will become just a quaint, antique concept from the early days when the Web still lived in a box. Nobody will think about "going on the Web" or "going online" because they will never NOT be on the Web, they will always be online.

Think about that. A world in which every physical object, everything we do, and eventually perhaps our every thought and action is recorded, augmented, and possibly shared. What will the world be like when it's all connected? When all our bodies and brains are connected together -- when even our physical spaces, furniture, products, tools, and even our natural environments, are all online? Beyond just a Global Brain, we are really building a Global Body.

The World is becoming the Web. The "Web Wide World" is coming and is going to be a big theme of the next 20 years.

Comments

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    • Tony Yet Tony Yet
      16 months ago


      Kevin Kelly called that the ONE machine, see his talk at the 2007 EG conference: http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/kevin_kelly_on_the_next_5_000_days_of_the_web.html

    • olivierertzscheid olivierertzscheid
      16 months ago


      Hello,
      Just to mention a text pointing the same kind of evolution as yours, from a World Wide Web to a World Life Web.
      http://affordance.typepad.com/mon_weblog/2008/02/welcome-to-the.html
      Nova Spivack - My Public Twine

      • . .•∞º˙ . .•∞º˙
        16 months ago


        Very interesting text.

        I am not a document. However, the trail I leave as I trample through the wilderness of the online jungle may become one. It is like footsteps in the sand. It's very easy to see where I've been and where I've come from, but much more difficult to determine where I may be going simply by reading this trail. When the web can extrapolate from the direction I've been taking, and get to the next destination before me, that is when convergence will take place.
        Nova Spivack - My Public Twine

    • wildcat wildcat
      16 months ago


      Nova:" Things are not going to turn out the way we thought. Instead of everything going digital -- a future in which we all live as avatars in cyberspace -- The digital world is going to invade the physical world. We already are the avatars and the physical world is becoming cyberspace. The idea that cyberspace is some other place is going to dissolve because everything will be part of the Web."

      Brightly put, however, I think that the term we should use is not "instead" but 'simultaneous convergence' in both directions. there is no doubt that the world is heading into a physical space that is augmented and hyperconnected, and yes eventually every physical object will become a smart interrelated and semantically correlated artifact of our civilization, and yes i agree that the noosphere is finally emerging. having said that, I believe that some will desire to continue the progress of online life, possibly culminating in some form or other of mind upload, when the technology will be available.
      the new global body which you describe, is good news, for by hyperconnectivity we exemplify our empathic nature, and yet (and maybe because of that) we need allow the space for all forms of human cognition to take place, hence whilst it is true that the digital invades the physical, it is also true that physical invades the digital.
      we are building a global mind, and now is the time to tackle the really hard questions: Identity, consciousness, evolution, empathy (and many many others).

      We may also desire to remember that the Internet evolution magazine reports:" TechCrunch50 conference, startup Imindi, which offers a service involving the mapping of thoughts and associations in a database for use in social networking, received a hostile welcome from Silicon Valley. This does not mean that the Imindi service lacks innovation. On the contrary, Imindi might just be too novel for many people .
      The Imindi (http://imindi.com/) founders have challenged the world to think of artificial intelligence not as making computers smarter because of human beings, but as making humans smarter because of computers. "
      we may need come up with a more integrated vision, to allow the full blown emergence of a conscious world to come forth and shine.

      thanks for an inspiring note
      W.
      ps. thank you Olivier, the paper you linked to deals with some very serious questions
      Nova Spivack - My Public Twine

      • Yihong Ding Yihong Ding
        16 months ago


        thank you for reading and mentioning my post, wild.

        I very much agree to your comment. Identity, consciousness, and evolution have become critical issues. The next breakthrough (i.e. lifting the Web up to another stage beyond Web 2.0) must be some significant innovation on these fields (or at least one of these fields).

        Yihong
        Nova Spivack - My Public Twine

    • Mark Szpakowski
      16 months ago


      Indeed - the noosphere does not replace the other *spheres (biosphere, atmosphere, geosphere), or live in isolation from them, but layers over them, and penetrates and permeates them in distributed attention. Webcelium....
      Nova Spivack - My Public Twine

    • Yihong Ding Yihong Ding
      16 months ago


      Nova,

      thank you for the note. I like it and it is well written. The Web is extending itself gradually out of a network of computers, but to a more and more sophisticated network.

      It is quite a coincidence. After my article of "a new take of internet-base AI", I am writing another article for Internet Evolution discussing the similar issue you have shared in this note. I would like to see how you may think of it after it is released.

      Anyway, thank you again. As usual, you often bring us the most advanced thinking about the progress of World Wide Web.

      Yihong
      Nova Spivack - My Public Twine

    • Greg Boutin Greg Boutin
      16 months ago


      Personally like the idea but gear yourself for wolf-crying folks calling it scary. "Tracked" comes to mind when thinking about "Every thought and action is recorded, augmented, and possibly shared". You might want to polish the expressions if this is a theme you plan on using for twine thought leadership efforts.

      Extending your thoughts further, and making this even more mystical and futuristic, I've long wondered where the borders lie between the world of ideas and the physical world. As an illustration, could we actually be Sims, as in the video game? Lots of religious metaphors and implications here...

      One thing we need to watch out for as we blur those frontiers, is to keep track of what's virtual and what's physical, so we don't confuse them and apply actions common in the virtual world - such as delete or copy... - to the physical world. So far, the virtual world still inhabits and draws upon the resources of the physical world (e.g. electricity, hardware etc), and is nothing without it. For as long as this is true, railings will need to be placed on how the virtual world reaches into the physical world so the first doesn't end up destroying the second inadvertently as people start confusing each other.

      As an example, soon we might be able to spend all our lives in virtual-reality environments if we really wanted to. Except we still have an "avatar" in our physical environment, which needs to be fed and catered for in other ways, as it sustains those other virtual avatars.

      Will the virtual environments ultimately exist without the physical one? Mind-boggling :)

    • Greg Boutin Greg Boutin
      16 months ago


      I added more comments re: Nova's post on my blog at Semantics Incorporated

      Btw, in terms of virtual world, I have a fascination for (and not stake into) the freeware game Noctis

      78 billion unique stars, most of which host many planets and moons orbiting them, all in under 1MB!

    • JDP JDP
      16 months ago


      Don't overlook an arguably more robust location service / broker - Yahoo Fire Eagle. Using OAUTH, this service gives users control over when, if, to whom (what applications), and at what level of granularity locations are reported to and through that broker. Of course, this provides some comfort for users with regard to the end-using applications ... moving the question of security / privacy squarely onto the brokerage service (Who might be able to break into or subpoena that? How long is data kept? Will Yahoo use the data in some way not acceptable to users? Have they made any "deals" with others / governments - like China!?).

      What we may need for an even better "feel good" is some "Switzerland" of location processing - just as that is there somewhat for banking (though recent developments appear to be chipping away at that particular haven). Hey, maybe that is what Google is thinking of doing with its floating data centers?

    • Alvis Brigis Alvis Brigis
      16 months ago


      Some systems context for Nova's observations: http://memebox.com/futureblogger/show/915-nova-spivack-s-web-as-world-observation-leads-us-further-down-the-rabbit-hole

      BTW, I am a Twine noob and have no idea how to track-back to threads in here. Do I just add twine wads? Help! :)
      Nova Spivack - My Public Twine

    • Paul Roberts Paul Roberts
      16 months ago


      This is my first comment since joining Twine last week. Can I say I'm happy to be here!

      Nova, your Web Wide World is similar conceptually to 'pervasive data', 'ubiquitous communications' and 'ambient intelligence' - in short, this trend has been coming for some time. Your value-add is to thread recent developments and provide some clarity over what the concepts mean in practice - excellent for those that need actual experience of something new before they can understand it.

      I agree with the trend that you outlined but I can't help but feel there is a flip-side, and it goes to the digital divide. I feel attracted to the Web Wide World - bring it on! But to participate and gain socially and economically in the digital world presupposes having the literacies to do and valuing openness and transparency. Differences is skills and capacities will create new social and economic divides. Some will be more digital than others.

      Institutions value secrecy, businesses compete aggressively and there is always a war on somewhere.
      The web is a social phenomenon more than anything else, but what about those who would rather be alone - or at least offline some of the time - and those that demand secrecy?
      Nova Spivack - My Public Twine

      • Alvis Brigis Alvis Brigis
        16 months ago


        Good points Paul.

        I agree that along with the new era there will develop a new divide. At the same time,increasingly smart software and knowledge networks will push to make participation super easy and automatic. It will force us to reciprocally develop the skills to maintain privacy. You will really need to know what you're doing, or trust a disinformation / secrecy service, in order to avoid "assimilation". Thus, a more complex info immune system to quantification will be forced to rapidly evolve.
        Nova Spivack - My Public Twine

    • Paul Roberts Paul Roberts
      16 months ago


      I think you are right about developments over time to make participation easy but the issues are cultural and social too, not just skilled base. I'm referring to a willingness to interact with others online as opposed to traditional social interaction.

      I agree with you about privacy skills too. Add to that e-security skills.
      Nova Spivack - My Public Twine

      • wildcat wildcat
        16 months ago


        There is no doubt that participation in an hyperconnected world is problematic in more ways than one, not least of which are concepts that are transported from traditional modes and contexts into the web. for an exploratory discussion of trust and friendship in hyperconnectivity, see this twine: http://www.twine.com/twine/11h43rww7-2xq/friendship-in-hyperconnectivity
        Nova Spivack - My Public Twine

    • François Dongier
      16 months ago


      Here's my view of Nova's post (feel free to modify/version this mindmap)

      http://www.mindmeister.com/maps/show_public/10432786
      Nova Spivack - My Public Twine

      • . .•∞º˙ . .•∞º˙
        16 months ago


        Francois--that's absolutely facinating! And very well thought out. Where would you place such things as musical taste & mp3 collections, and for that matter, all the STUFF we accumulate through our life--movies, books, household goods, etc.?

        And my wife and I were just talking about this one tonite at dinner--pantry, refrigerator, recipe book, calendar schedule, all communicating together so when I walk in the door at night, I have a potential list of acceptable recipes on my kitchen monitor showing all the possible meals we could cook that night, based on who's going to be home, what they like/don't like to eat, what's in the food stores at the moment, and how much time it will take to make and fit within everyone's schedule.

        That to me is the web-wide-world, providing me directly with personal content that brings together all sorts of disparate data into a functional performance set, that is RELEVANT to my individual life activity.
        Nova Spivack - My Public Twine

        • Phil Duby Phil Duby
          16 months ago


          I think I provided [one possible] answer to that without reading your post :-)

          Stuff: Things I own under My user-profile
          tastes: under interests or preferences

          For the acceptable recipes, mix in the family health information / diet restrictions (for medical or purely personal reasons). If the preliminary recipe options / schedules do not "match" well, you could get notified on the way home to pick up some ingredients, if that was not automatically added to the schedule before you left home.
          Nova Spivack - My Public Twine

      • Phil Duby Phil Duby
        16 months ago


        Darn, Google chrome will not show that. Just a blank page. Had to switch to FF to view. Now I can see it.

        Interesting structure. Looks good. A few details / alternate ways of looking at pieces.

        I do not see a particular reason to separate "Data on the web" and "INTERNET of tagged THINGS". At least for the portion "wearing a URL". It is all going to be web data. Some with geo coding, some without. Some with history / logs (sensor based data), some without.

        The [garden] sensor data you show under "My user-profile" probably belongs under "Data on the web". Even though that is your own garden / sensors, given the other parts about "tagged things near me" under "My context", that sensor data is probably going to be 'on the web' (maybe private, but that is optional). The "My garden parameters" information *IS* part of the profile though, along with other 'preferences', like music, cuisine, sports, fashion, entertainment, more [under my interests I guess]. "where are my things?" is probably part of "tagged things near me", and My user-profile should have "What things do I own" with subsections for "What do I take with me?" for various activities. I see the profile as configurable but relatively static information. "where" is more dynamic and sensor driven. Then one of the "services" can match my context with the profile to remind you to pick up or leave behind the appropriate items depending on current plans. Add another [automatic] item to the context for "What I left home with" to prevent loosing things.

        A good start. Could be expanded a lot, but there does not seem to be need for more to illustrate the concept, and the direction it could go.
        Nova Spivack - My Public Twine

    • François Dongier
      16 months ago


      Thanks, Rick & Phil, for these nice ideas. Some seem very simple to integrate: music taste as detail of my interests, smart fridge as another device (with missing ingredient recommendations as another service), medical record as part of my profile.
      What i find harder at this point is, as Phil pinpoints, to clarify the relation between the "internet of things" and "the web" as we know it now, made of documents and data.
      About Chrome: Mindmeister works well for me with it. Do u have a problems accessing maps from http://www.mindmeister.com/maps/public ?
      (note: sometimes it takes a good few seconds before Mindmeister responds).
      Ah, also: I would rather do this with Imindi than MindMeister :)
      Nova Spivack - My Public Twine

      • Phil Duby Phil Duby
        16 months ago


        What I got in chrome as a blank page with a single horizontal scroll bar. No vertical scroll, and could not find anything in horizontal scroll area. Zoom out did not seem to do anything. When I tried it again just now, viewing and manual scrolling worked fine. Zoom and recenter still not repsonding. Help! The gremlins are playing in my computer!
        Nova Spivack - My Public Twine

      • Phil Duby Phil Duby
        16 months ago


        For "internet of things" and "the web", the only differences I see are [may be] how you locate and access the target. Is it a URL you lookup with some sort of data search, and access with http / tcp/ip, or is it [only] found / findable because it is in 'signal range' for bluetooth / wi-fi / other, and accessed directly from your own devices without any intermediate lookup (like DNS). A target that publishes its address by direct transmission, but is accessed as a URL, still falls into the first case for me. If there are devices that can be accessed directly, but are 'found' with a web based datasearch, I would say the actual device is in the second set, and the lookup service is just an independent 'phone book'. To distinguish between these cases does not require any information about what the device capabilities are. A simple sensor that reports the current temperature [and optionally geo-location] could be implemented either way, and the access path would determine which 'bucket' to put it in. Same for a points of interest historical information 'kiosk'. That could contain a relatively large [static or dynamic] data set, text, images, multimedia. The [today] obvious implementation would be a web page / site. But if it is only accesses locally / directly, I would put it in the second group instead.

        Getting more ideas while writing this. Todays existing point of interest displays / kiosks are purely visual / manual [with maybe sensors to tell when someone is close]. Future ones could be much more mixed / interactive, using the [selected / public] profile information to choose what to display [first], and perhaps allow limited use for the display facilities as a remote screen for the 'personal mobile device' doing relating queries. Basically, allow the cell phone to become a remote control for the information display. For this as well, the bucket I would put it in depends on whether the kiosk has web access / is accessible from the web or not.

        I guess I do the split based on 'connectivity', and that is fairly artificial. Things that are only accessible / noticeable when you are close enough (in 'sight', [visual, audio, rf]) I do not include in 'the web', any more than I would one of today's roadside billboards (although some of the new electronic billboards could be programmed / updated from the Internet).
        Nova Spivack - My Public Twine

    • Greg Boutin Greg Boutin
      16 months ago


      We've got proofs! http://www.trendwatching.com/trends/offon.htm

    • Frank Mosco Frank Mosco
      11 months ago


      Interesting. I coined the term "Web Wide World" in 1996 with the same description you are giving above. In fact, that is what I named my company and for 5 years I had the domain name " webwideworld.com ". Then somehow the domain was stolen. I'd love to get it back one day.
      Nova Spivack - My Public Twine

    • Frank Mosco Frank Mosco
      11 months ago


      Yeah well. worldwideweb.com was taken.. :P ha ha ha.

      But damn, there were a lot of great domain names available then.

      I'm checking the wayback machine now to see what that my website looked like. Unfortunately, I had 3D animations and wayback doesn't save those..
      Nova Spivack - My Public Twine

    • Frank Mosco Frank Mosco
      11 months ago


      Nova - help me put a definition in the Urban Dictionary?

      My idea at the time in addition to yours, and the other fine definitions which flesh out the concept with so many new and growing applications, and related technologies.. was that the web would quickly grow larger than the world in it's largess. Thus the world itself would be expanded to whatever the size of the web grew to. (Ironically, of course making the world infinitely smaller while the web grew exponentially larger).

      All this is interesting to speculate on. However, my uncle wrote an excellent and heady book about the mythology of cyberspace..

      http://www.amazon.com/Digital-Sublime-Myth-Power-Cyberspace/dp/026213439X
      Nova Spivack - My Public Twine

    • Glen VanLand Glen VanLand
      10 months ago


      Its mainly due to web 2.0 and social networking, and the availability of high bandwidth for mobile devices. These 2 things will change all social / internet communications and interactions, and will morph into devices such as digital picture frames.

      Glen
      Nova Spivack - My Public Twine
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