We here at the Social Media Expedition have been talking about Web 2.0 for a long time. As great as the new technologies are that have made a participatory Web possible, they’re hardly news anymore.

You may be wondering when Web 3.0 will come around. You’re not alone. We’ve been wondering, too. Which is why we’re hosting a panel about the Semantic Web, what many see to be the foundation upon which Web 3.0 will be built.

"I don’t know what you mean.." by Dullhunk on Flickr

The concepts are a little fuzzy around the edges, but the basic idea is that the Semantic Web makes it easier for users to interact with information. Instead of using a search engine to find places to look for the lowest price on a DVD, the new standards will make it possible – even easy – for a search engine to do that comparison shopping for you.

There’s more to it than that, and even Wikipedia’s best explanation is in the first half of the first sentence, where they say "The Semantic Web is an evolving extension of the World Wide Web."

The goal is, essentially, to make Web 2.0 more machine-readable, to make searching, updating, and even creating information easier. This is similar to the goals behind the new "computational knowledge engine," Wolfram|Alpha – but interesting as it is to see the way Wolfram|Alpha interacts with raw data, it’s not quite ready for primetime use. It, along with most of the rest of the semantic web, is mostly conceptual and nebulous at this point.

The Semantic Web is still in the proof-of-concept stage, and it seems that the concepts being proven could still use some explanation.

The difficulty behind defining the Semantic Web is why we’ve assembled a team of people knowledgable about the ideas behind it to present a panel discussion at a future Social Media Expedition Breakfast.

In the meantime, we’ll be keeping an eye on developments, and we’ll keep you updated on how the coming of Web 3.0 is going to affect you.

"I know what you mean.." by Dullhunk on Flickr

Tags | breakfast, network, networking, semantic web, semantics, Social Expedition, Social Media