SOCIAL NETWORK - Social Network to promote peace

Technology glitterati looking to stay on the cutting edge of all things cool say Web 2.0, generally regarded as hosted services, is out of style and Web 3.0 is in. But solution providers are wary of what some are defining as the next big bang in technology.This week at the Web 2.0 conference in San Francisco a number of companies were touting their Web 3.0 or semantic Web credentials. Radar Networks, a San Francisco company which touts itself as a pioneer of Semantic Web or Web 3.0 technology, for example, introduced Friday the “invite beta” of Twine, a service aimed at providing a way for users to share, organize and find information more easily. Radar is touting Twine as one of the first mainstream Web 3.0 technologies.

Radar Networks Founder and CEO Nova Spivack calls Yahoo the leader of Web 1.0 and Google the leader of Web 2.0. He says it is unclear who will be the leader of Web 3.0 but Twine is a “first step.”

Solution providers warn that they are skeptical of such claims and careful to make sure their clients are not burned by bloated Web 3.0 claims.

Tyler Dikman, the CEO of Cooltronics, a Tampa, Fla. solution provider and the vice president of business strategy for FlickIM, a Berkeley Calif. communications platform vendor, said he is skeptical about Web 3.0 claims from Radar.

“This sounds like a Web 3.0 Alpha launch,” said Dikman of the Radar claims. “I think it’s pretty gutsy for a company to call themselves a Web 3.0 company when they haven’t proven themselves in the marketplace yet. Their concept is absolutely headed in the right direction, but I am skeptical about the technology until they can prove me wrong.”

“It’s all well and good for the industry to talk about and understand Web 3.0 technologies, but if the general public is unable to comprehend or utilize the technology it is worthless,” he said. “The public as a whole are just starting to embrace Web 2.0. Companies like Radar have to make sure their targeted demographic can keep up with the technology they are putting out.”

Although Radar and others are just starting to bring Web 3.0 technologies to market, the semantic Web has long been proclaimed as the next great frontier by World Wide Web inventor Tim Berners Lee.

Full article on http://www.crn.com/software/202404824

Microsoft is spending hundreds of millions of dollars to build a 3-D replication of the world that would become the platform for data overlays to provide people with useful information.

Google (NSDQ: GOOG) and Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) are intensely focused on building 3-D maps of the world and adding social elements on top of their mapping services, executives said Friday at the Web 2.0 Summit.During a panel discussion at the San Francisco conference, Erik Jorgensen, general manager of Live Search at Microsoft, said the software maker is spending “hundreds of millions of dollars” to build a 3-D replication of the world that would become the platform for data overlays to provide people with useful information on geographical locations.

Microsoft this week launched an upgrade of its Live Search service, which offers through the Virtual Earth platform 3-D imagery of nearly 200 U.S. cities and other areas covering 80% of the nation’s population. As part of the upgrade, people using Live Search Maps can create and share their own 3-D models of buildings through an alliance with Dassault Systemes.

Full story on http://www.informationweek.com/news/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=202404930