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We are riding high on Web N.0 waves. The Web 3.0 era began too soon or rather I should say we pulled it too soon. We saw how quickly we moved from Web 2.0 to 3.0. Time and Technology moves very fast and Web evolution slows for no one.

We have seen lots of definition for Web 3.0. Tim Berners-Lee, a father of the World Wide Web, talks about the “Semantic Web,” a way that computers employ the meaning of words–not just pattern matching–along with logical rules to connect independent nuggets of data and so create more context for information. Sramana Mitra framed cool formula for Web 3.0. Web 3.0 results from combining Content, Commerce, Community and Context, with personalization and vertical search. Or, to put in a handy phrase: Web 3.0 = (4C + P + VS).

To explain with, Web 1.0 was all about creating awareness for online commerce and fulfilling your hunt for information from anywhere. During that era, we saw many good companies evolving like Yahoo, eBay, Amazon, Blue Nile, etc. During the era we also experienced a setback in DotCom world.

Web 2.0 has been a relatively niche phenomenon, with hundreds and thousands of tiny companies that are primarily focused on social networking by building online communities. MySpace, Facebook and Digg, have been the most notable companies to emerge. But there are a plethora of others where you can “meet,” “connect” and “make friends” online these days–habits no longer considered weird.

With Web 2.0, we also saw great deal of investment in vertical search companies. We saw sites like Indeed, Kayak, TripMama, etc. giving search results from various sites or TheFind if you’re seeking shopping advice. Therein lies the big difference with Google, which is a generic horizontal search engine.

One of the best thing that web 2.0 evolved is user generated content in the form of blogs, podcasts, comments at the bottom of articles and reviews of restaurants, movies, stores, and hotels. Media have become truly interactive, as opposed to the one-way world we were used to.

And now Web 3.0, we see it moving around with two different elements; context and the user. Fundamental to context is the user. And when you fuse a specific user with genuine context, you wind up with truly personalized service.

Let me put up an example from online travel, obviously me being currently associated with it. Ideally, we would love to have our online travel agent you can understand our needs, preferences and customize the package as per our pocket alongside gets us the details of interesting restaurants, boutiques and shows all aligned. Web 3.0 is a union of content and commerce in compact way i.e., coming together in a big way making things easier for you. Web 3.0 will ride on top of 2.0 using its community elements.

Thanks to Saramana Mitra and Forbes