BBC delivers Web 3.0

So the BBC has struck a partnership deal with IBM to create web 3.0 technology.

Now we all know that web 2.0 is getting a bit overused...I mean, the term's been around since 2004, and even your granny's web 2.0 these days.

But I'm more than a little uncomfortable with the idea that Ashley Highfield of the BBC is going to 'create' web 3.0 for us.

Web 2.0 was allegedly born in the aftermath of the 'dot com bubble'. That happened in the Autumn of 2001. So three years later we finally got a term for what had been evolving online.

And what had evolved online? A user-centred, application rich web experience. Websites that were filled with user content. Websites that facilitated communication and the sharing of ideas and content. Websites that were driven by people's need to learn and share knowledge.

The BBC has struggled with the idea of web 2.0. Their website is still heavily mired in the mud of its web 1.0 genesis. Much of their content reminds me of the type of thing telly and radio people who've done a Dreamweaver course and attended a few conferences think is good. It's still based on the viewer staring at a screen that will educate, entertain and inform.

So the idea of the BBC 'creating' web 3.0 for us, the users, is novel. So what are we getting for web 3.0. A video search system for CBeebies and CBBC programmes. Last time I looked, the under-5 market was not the influential technology shaper of the online world.

And while I agree that harnessing video search technology could be a make or break strategy for the BBC, it's probably not what your average web user thinks of as the next 'must-have' technology. I mean, not too many of us have got an archive of 1.4 million hours of video and audio to digitise and sort. Most of us could, with a little bit of effort, view and organise our multimedia in a week or so. Of course it would be nice if a machine would come along and do that for us, but it's not my next big Must Have technology.

So. The BBC is delivering us web 3.0, even as they struggle to adjust to web 2.0. Which, if I remember rightly, we delivered to them. Read more at the guardian.