Marketing to the Social Web: How Digital Customer Communities Build Your Business

Chapter 17. Living and Working in Web 4.0 (It's Right Around the Corner)

As I said in Chapter 1, Web 4.0 is right around the corner. The first phase, Web 1.0, ran from about 1989 to 1995, which was the time of web site building using HTML.

The second phase, Web 2.0, started with the advent of the browser. Netscape, Internet Explorer, and other browsers enabled people to maneuver around the Web, search more effectively, and do e-commerce more efficiently. We saw the rise of Yahoo! and Google. Dot-com companies were hot, hot, hot.

As Web 2.0 started to mature, and before the dot-com bubble burst, companies had planted the seeds for the social web. Think Amazon, think eBay—both of which promoted a social structure in various ways. Amazon invited users to post product reviews and respond to reviews; eBay had buyers rating sellers. It was (and is) a real community thing.

In the past few years, the social web of Web 3.0 has taken hold. As I write, we're not only deeply into it, we're moving to a second generation, a social web tailored more specifically to your interests. Whether you like the Red Sox, want to research diabetes, or collect Star Wars memorabilia, you can connect with your interest on the social web. Companies are just beginning to scatter those seeds now for the next and what I think is the most compelling release of the Web, Web 4.0, the emotive web.

Welcome to the Emotive Web

Web 4.0 is emotive because broadband technology means visual and interactive rich media and because ...