This guest post is written by Marc Benioff, chairman and CEO of salesforce.com. He has been widely recognized for pioneering innovation with honors such as the 2007 Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year, the SDForum Visionary Award, Alumni Entrepreneur of the Year by the University of Southern California (USC) Marshall School of Business, and being ranked No. 7 on the Top 100 Most Influential People in IT survey by eWEEK.
For almost ten years now, we have been witnessing a decisive shift from client-server software to software as a service. Google, eBay, and Amazon.com established the value of multi-tenant internet applications in the consumer market, and salesforce.com, Google, and others have been proving that this same multi-tenant model is winning in the enterprise as well.
This shift to Web-based applications has generated two powerful waves so far. Now, we are seeing a third wave—one that we are calling Web 3.0—and it may prove to be the most significant and disruptive yet to the traditional software industry.
While the world doesn’t need another buzzword, I feel that both the emerging generation of entrepreneurs and developers, as well as traditional software ISVs, need to grasp the enormity of Web 3.0 and its potential to create change, disruption, and opportunity. Web 3.0 is about replacing existing software platforms with a new generation of platforms as a service.
To put Web 3.0 into perspective, we need to look at all of the major waves in the history of the Web. They are not defined by distinct periods of time, but are best seen as overlapping waves of adoption.
Web 1.0: Anyone Can Transact
Web 1.0 was about the emergence of the “killer app” from companies like eBay, Amazon.com, and Google. Although we thought of them as Web sites at the time, they were really amazing applications with a level of functionality, ease of use, and scale that had rarely been seen before by the average consumer. Transactions, not just of goods but of knowledge, became ubiquitous and instant. The efficiency and transparency that was once the domain of global financial markets was now at the command of individual consumers and businesses. Web 1.0 remains a huge driving force today and will continue to be for some time.
Web 2.0: Anyone Can Participate
Web 2.0 is about the next generation of applications on the Internet, featuring user-generated content, collaboration, and community. Anyone can participate in content creation. Posting a viral video on YouTube, tagging photos from a party on Flickr, or writing about politics on Blogspot requires no technical skill, just an Internet connection. Participation changes our idea of content itself: content isn’t fixed at the point of publication—it comes alive. Google’s AdSense became an instant business model in particular for bloggers, and video-sharing sites have rewritten the rules of popular culture and viral content.
Whether you are creating a business around Web 1.0 or 2.0, building massively scalable data centers that are secure, reliable, and highly available is not a job for the faint of heart or shallow of pocket. For companies entering the emerging software as a service industry, the massive time and capital requirements remain a substantial barrier to entry. Moreover, traditional client-server software development is still mired in painful complexity. And the “rewards” for creating a successful application are arduous deployments and maintenance.
Web 3.0: Anyone Can Innovate
Web 3.0 changes all of this by completely disrupting the technology and economics of the traditional software industry. The new rallying cry of Web 3.0 is that anyone can innovate, anywhere. Code is written, collaborated on, debugged, tested, deployed, and run in the cloud. When innovation is untethered from the time and capital constraints of infrastructure, it can truly flourish.
For businesses, Web 3.0 means that SaaS apps can be developed, deployed, and evolved far more quickly and cost-effectively than traditional software of the client-server era. The dramatic reset in economics should help CIOs finally break through the innovation backlog created by the cost and complexity of maintaining client-server apps.
For developers, Web 3.0 means that all they need to create their dream app is an idea, a browser, some Red Bull, and a few Hot Pockets. Because every developer around the world can access the same powerful cloud infrastructures, Web 3.0 is a force for global economic empowerment.
For ISVs, Web 3.0 means that they can spend more time focusing on the core value they want to offer to customers, not the infrastructure to support it. Because code lives in the cloud, global talent pools can contribute to it. Because it runs in the cloud, a truly global market can subscribe to it as a service.
Just ask my friend Jeremy Roche, the CEO of CODA, Europe’s second-largest ERP vendor. CODA successfully navigated the transition from mainframe to client-server, and now it’s facing an even bigger transition to SaaS. Building the infrastructure—not just the data center but the entire software stack as well—would take upwards and $20 million and several years. Instead, Jeremy is using our Force.com platform to get a massive jump-start on this process. His systems engineers will not have to cobble together servers, load balancers, and networking switches and then find a small army of people to tune and maintain them. His software developers won’t have to build a security and sharing model, database or workflow engine—they’ll just use ours. Meanwhile, Jeremy’s team can focus on exactly what they do best: building a killer accounting application. CODA2go will be available this fall, giving Jeremy a big lead on the competition.
Amazon.com, Google, and salesforce.com have spent hundreds of millions of dollars to build these infrastructures already, and a dozen others, including Facebook, MySpace, Ning, Rollbase, Longjump, Dabble db, Intuit, and Coghead, are also offering some form of platform as a service in the cloud.
Creating Value
How much disruption will Web 3.0 cause? An examination of the technology forces at work gives us a good clue:
Vic Gundotra, VP of Engineering at Google, offered this interesting perspective at a recent salesforce.com event. Vic looks at the history of computing, starting with the mainframe era, as two grids: vast computing power vs. low accessibility and terrific ease of deployment vs. poor depth of functionality.
The client-server era caused a reversal of polarity in both cases. Computing power was much more accessible but limited in scope; there was an explosion in functionality, but deployment became a nightmare. Vic sees the Web 3.0 era eliminating these trade-offs and potentially maximizing computing power, access, ease of deployment, and depth of functionality. As Vic says, the key is that industry leaders like Google, salesforce.com, and others have to work to make the cloud ever more accessible and programmable, keep connectivity pervasive, and make the client more powerful.
In our view, the move from mainframes to client server was painful for IBM and DEC and created massive wealth for a broad generation of new companies like Microsoft, Oracle, PeopleSoft, and SAP. Web 3.0 threatens Microsoft’s .net, BEA, and WebSphere. And while I expect companies such as Amazon.com, Facebook, Google, and salesforce.com to do well, I think that even more wealth and further innovation will be created by a new, more broadly distributed class of companies and entrepreneurs that leverage the power of Web 3.0.
One of our developers has a bumper sticker on his laptop that captures the spirit of Web 3.0 perfectly. It reads: “My other computer is a data center.” That’s a claim that any developer in the world can now make. And that’s the stuff of revolution.
Just to compare, here is Eric Schmidt’s explanation of Web 3.0…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T0QJmmdw3b0
excellent post
Web 3.0 is not going to be about innovation alone, it has to be about synergistic collaboration that is driven by innovation. Innovation without foundation has no future.
Whoa! This post gave me a lot to think about and build an exciting future for the web.
[...] Welcome to Web 3.0: Now Your Other Computer is a Data Center Web 3.0 changes all of this by completely disrupting the technology and economics of the traditional software industry. The new rallying cry of Web 3.0 is that anyone can innovate, anywhere. Code is written, collaborated on, debugged, tested, deployed, an (tags: web3.0 saas cloud trends) [...]
It’s pretty exciting to see Salesforce innovating so heavily here. My predication is that while it will take time, Force.com revenues will eclipse core Salesforce CRM sooner than most anyone expects. Not this year or next, but as Force.com and other platforms continue to iterate, the lagging reasons not to use a platform (today, mostly functionality) will fall away, and the market opp will be even bigger than CRM. Look at trust.salesforce.com … app aside, think what it takes to build that …
[...] Continue reading on TechcrunchIT… [...]
Um..this description of Web 3.0 sounds like Web 0.1 Beta. I personally don’t think there will ever be a Web 3.0, like there will never be an Intel 586 Chip. Anyone that claims what web 3.0 is and labels it that way is just riding a cheesy wave of version numbers. Something more accurate that’s next in buzzwords would be “Web V” (for virtualization, etc.) , Web 3D, Web 4D, etc - anything but 3.0!
Great post, Marc. You’ve perfectly described what we at zembly are doing. Zembly, at http://zembly.com, is a browser-based, social programming development environment, and the world’s first development environment for Facebook, OpenSocial, and Meebo. Think of it as Wikipedia for live, editable code. You bring your Hot Pockets, Red Bull, and creativity, and create your app by reusing pieces and parts from thousands of other people. And when the app is done, it is transparently hosted and scaled to any number of users. Zembly is part of Sun Microsystems, and is in private beta now, but we recently opened a block of invitations. Head over to http://zembly.com and click the “Join our beta” button to try it out.
COMPLETELY agree with dominic above.
Agree with Dominic too.
This analysis is so one-sided.
I think Web 3.0 is coming, but here all the wrong reasons are pointed to.
Zero deployment, greater accessibility has been there since the web was born.
Grid power and improved functionality (ajax) are just one part of Web 2.0.
Where are all the other components of Web 3.0?
Data portability, contextual user centered interfaces, pervasive access from diverse devices??
the axis
Agree with posters 8, 9 and 10. This is unilateral propoganda. More rhetoric than anything else!!!
Written by Benioff? Don’t flatter yourself. Benioff never even saw this before the PR team sent it out.
agree with 8,9,10,11
this is a shameless plug.
And to think that this ceo actually believes that IBM and Microsoft are just sitting on their hands doing nothing? This is what engadget calls “CEOh-oh, no he didn’t”
I liked the analysis. The argument is well-written. The problem is that Marc just described Web 2.0 (albeit the rounding out of Web 2.0, the last mile)! Web 2.0 is about us getting to know each other via the Web. It also marks the transition from Desktop computing to Cloud computing. Web 3.0 is about the Web getting to know us (probably culminating in Cyberdyne and the Terminator). That is why we also refer to it as the Semantic Web. It’s already begun with search engines like PowerSet and ENTH. In Web 3.0 you’ll spend less time teaching each website about you and your preferences. They will just “get you”! BTW, it’s happening today across a wide variety of websites.
Now let me explain why I think Marc missed the mark! There is an Amazon #1 best seller called “Tuned In” - get it. It describes how once visionary people sometimes lose their way as they look out from within. Marc’s analysis is grounded in his experience. He disrupted ACT! and Goldmine. I mean he kicked their asses! Salesforce.com was the first seriously successful SaaS (Software as a Service) company. Now, guys like 37 Signals with Highrise and PipelineDeals are attacking where Salesforce is weak. It may feel like a new platform. Either way, a new level of ‘getting it done’ has appeared (Jason Fried at 37 Signals not only pioneered a new development process, “Getting Real”, but also helped create a new language + platform (Ruby on Rails)). One that is disruptive to Salesforce. And, I’m sure the folks at Salesforce are very focused on surviving and thriving as the SaaS platforms continue to evolve. From Marc’s perspective, this probably feels like Web 3.0. But it is actually just further evolution of Web 2.0 technology.
BTW, get used to version labels - that is how we make sense of our ever changing world. It’s kinda like the evolution of Man. If you look hard, you can actually see a new version of human evolving today. I like to call the last version “Analog Man”. They use things like Fax machines and have never heard of Twitter!
Generally I think this is a good post and I respect anyone who tries to look into the future and puts serious thought into it. I also think the historical review and interpretation is accurate BUT…
In my experience the breakthrough into new waves of innovation, especially on the web, never came from major platforms that were build to start something new and grandiose. The world wide web itself was started as a experimental project and when Andreesen & Co. went to meet television networks to talk about the web they here dismissed as kids playing with their toys while the ‘big guys’ are building the information super highway for TV on demand … so much for the next big platform.
This analogy doesn’t fully match with this post but it is still relevant in the sense that while the emergence for enabling technology at the right time is critical, it is people (users) and markets that discover opportunities and create new markets. It is people’s pains and frustrations that make them try truly new solutions to old problems and it is other people that prove that those solutions are valuable and make a difference.
Salesforce wanted to create software that is less painful to run, service and maintain. People and businesses proved that this is a good idea and now Salesforce has learned from their developer network that they want not just to outsource their applications but also their development environment - which is brilliant. There are even better examples, i.e. Kevin Rose wanted others to ‘help’ him research for cool and quality content and news on the web while working for a Tech TV channel. the result id Digg.com. Facebook, MySpace, Del.icio.us and even Google have similar stories to tell.
Of course without the necessary tool available (cheap storage and hosting etc.) those web 2.0 services would have never come to existence. So it is the markets willingness to innovate and the drive that comes from frustration and human desires that timely coincide with the emergence of enabling technologies that allow for major waves of innovation to happen. I don’t think one side can do it without the other and while I am a web platform believer I don’t think that the availability of web platform based development can spur a new wave of innovation and adoption comparable the jump form Web 1.0 to 2.0.
A good example here is mobile phone networks. The platform for exciting mobile applications has been around for years now (especially in Europe and parts of Asia) but nothing has really happened until Steve finally could not take the pain of dealing with this crappy Samsung / Nokia… whatever …anymore and wanted the web to finally come to his pocket device. He had the leverage, power and technology available to do it but I am sure the real innovation came from his frustrations with what was available before (is that how it happened?)
Web 3.0?
Whatever you want to call it I believe the next true wave of the web will be the ubiquitous computer / web. Maybe we can call it the UWeb or ueberweb or just the matrix ;-).
I believe that the real next big jump will be that users will not have to know anymore where a specific service or information comes from. Smart-phones, notebooks, desktops, local terminals, ATMs, Fridges, TVs all access web based services and deliver a seamless experience giving me access to relevant information, services, people and functionality at any given time. There is a lot of work to do, walled gardens to tear down and privacy and security issues to deal with but the first step is done. I can feel it, I know it… Damn it, I want and iPhone to access all my stuff from anywhere :-)
I think the above was an excellent, inspiring post and I am sure Mr. Benioff’s company will provide one of the enabling platforms for whatever comes next. I am just not sure if those platforms alone will drive us all the way to ‘3.0′.
If their is a web 3.0 I’m sure it will consist primarily of even uglier logos and stupider sounding business names than web 2.0 I can’t wait!
Excellent post! I couldn’t agree more. Reliability concerns and bandwidth limits are still limiting factors, but those issues should resolve in the next 3 to 5 years (hopefully :) ). Yahoo has also broken some ground with their recent BOSS api…encouraging monetization of these services may lead the charge into the next generation of internet applications.
“Web 3.0 is about replacing existing software platforms with a new generation of platforms as a service.” - Marc Benioff
In other words, “Web 3.0 is SalesForce.”
Give me a break… Benioff’s “paradigm” is an advertisement for his business and his business partners (Google). Their concern is aggregating as much data as possible, and Benioff’s “visionary” speech is nothing more than an attempt to coax people into turning as much of that data over to Salesforce as possible.
The “cloud” is a Web 2.0 concept, not a Web 3.0 innovation. The same goes for software as a service. “Platforms as a service” are nothing more than SaaS plus an API. Nothing here is new, nothing.
Benioff must have been an expert bullshitter in high school.
“Web 3.0″ might turn out to be a lot of things… tailored data using geo-locational awareness, “attention-management” applications that filter irrelevant data, or maybe selective “bullshit-blocking” technology… but definitely *not* Salesforce.
[...] Continue reading on TechcrunchIT… [...]
Web 3.0 will help
*architect user-centric experiences to deliver 24/7 portals
*enable strategize real-time eyeballs
*leverage next-generation users
Oh, you can get your own http://dack.com/web/bullshit.html - remember, this was created way back in web 1.0 days.
Goodluck and Happy Bullshitting!
Very interesting read!
[...] to Marc Benioff, guest blogging on Techcrunch, Web 3.0 is here. Apparently is works like [...]
Statements like Microsoft .net being in trouble are things that show the person is either severely misinformed or shilling something. One thing that is not going away is software. All .NET is, is a framework stack that enables software creation.
Certainly outsourcing hurts local IT guys that do server management (at some level), but behind the scenes software needs to be made. Whether it be Java, Ruby, .NET etc. etc., it matters not. No cloud environment is going to change that. At the end of the day you need software written, to use APIs, to create APIs, to interface with SaaS and so on.
No credibility in this post beyond moving to the cloud - and that is hardly insightful.
This post seems like a salesforce.com advertisement through web 3.0 hype rather than anything substantial. It’s disappointing to read such a low quality post on techcrunch.
[...] Read it at Techcrunch IT [...]
re: 14. John-Scott Dixon - August 1st, 2008
“Jason Fried at 37 Signals … helped create a new language + platform (Ruby on Rails)”.
That is a fairly misleading statement. Ruby on Rails is framework, which appeared in 2004. It is credited to David Heinemeier Hansson, another member of 37 Signals (http://www.rubyonrails.org/core). Ruby is a language, initially designed and developed by Yukihiro Matsumoto. It was first released in 1995, but English documentation did not appear until 1997 (http://www.linuxdevcenter.com/pub/a/linux/2001/11/29/ruby.html).
it is the price that was paid to post this that matter. and the msg is “SFDC wants your money badly”
Not that I expect good writing from TechCrunch, but could somebody tell this guy that “enormity” means “monstrous evil”, not “bigness”. Is he really trying to draw our attention to the monstrous evil of Web 3.0?
The rest of his thesis is pretty stupid as well. 99.999% of people will not innovate no matter how good the available tools.
I agree with Mr. Benioff story and vision what it comes to the evolution from the IT infrastructure point of view and evolving the client-server model in to SaaS.
However, this story does not cover Semantic Web and advances in ‘get to know you’ part of the finest services of the web today nor tomorrow.
Critique: Company CEO probably needs to address his company sales perspectives somewhere since this is not University Seminar. Mixing these things confuse ;-)
Saas OK
Semantic Web ?
in all kind of a Mobile platforms wearable ?
What do I forgot <—
While a fascinating insight to what SFDC is up to, this is not a definition of what Web 3.0 is. Benioff is just carrying on the buzzword evolution that saw ASP become SaaS and now The Cloud - fundamentally all the same thing but just a little better thought through each time. And as someone else has said, this text only describes SaaS meets Web 2.0.
Web 3.0 is yet to be fully defined but the term is already being loosely interchanges with “the symantic web”, a version of what we know now but where your experience is tailored around what and who you know. I don’t see Salesforce.com even referencing that, let alone innovating.
Ian Hendry
CEO, WeCanDo.BIZ
http://www.wecando.biz
Interesting article about saas and its future living in the clouds. But marking this as the web 3.0 is very from the salesforce perspective.
The term web 1.0 never existed and web 2.0 stands for simply the ‘next’, the ‘better’ web or even for the ‘web of the users’. The term was introduced by Tim O’Reilly, but it was heavily adopted by the users themselfes and stressed by the new and old massmedia.
Actually with moving saas applications into the clouds would not much touch the users expierences. They doesnt know and even care where their transactions will be processed.
Saas in the clouds is just a developer thing. And as a developer i like it really much. Hype can be initiated by developers, but will be generated by the masses.
So, i think like poster 8 too, simply increasing the major version number of the web for saas in the clouds will not work. Its just web 2.x.x
For manifesting a web 3.0 we need a web 3.0. We need a real evolutionary shift in the perception of the web by the end users. Much like the paradigm shift in involving the user generated content for web 2.0.
Thatswhy, in my eyes, Yahoos RIA approach is much more 3.0: http://www.sitepoint.com/blogs/2008/07/31/yahoo-web-30-is-all-about-offline-rias/
Because it affects the users daily life. But of course, its still not ‘evolutionary’.
Personally i think it woul be all about devices and the interfaces. Maybe without browsers like we know them allready. With web 2.0 we have the collective knowledge but we still need clumsy utensils to access them anytime and anywhere.
So the Mobile Web and the iPhone are more web 3.0 too, than saas in the clouds.
For the semantic web as the web 3.0, i can also not see any giant leap in shifting users web expierences. Its a lot machine centric. But i am not so much into it.
So i think we had still to wait for the web 3.0 and it would be likely not called web 3.0.
For now web 3.0 would be just a hard-fought marketing tool.
Good post but any technology that is not available to masses (cheap and affordable) is really not technology - it’s a luxury. SalesForce or Force.com is still a luxury.
[...] In a recent post, Marc Benioff shares his vision about Web 3.0 and what it means for the industry. [...]
Mr. Benioff,
I have had first-hand experience with “Salesfarce”. If it is an example of what we can expect from “Web 3.0″, then God help us all. Despite seven days of back and forth, your tech support department was unable to get a simple state abbreviations field on a “Web 1.0″ CGI form to integrate with your database.
Besides, why are we talking “Web 3.0″ when we have yet to define “Web 2.0″?!?
Like so many tech articles posted since Tim O’Reilly coined the term in 2004, this one references “Web 2.0″ as if it were something tangible–or at least a concept with clear, concise definition. It is not. In 2006, Web founder Sir Tim Berners-Lee sagely observed that “nobody knows what it means”:
http://tinyurl.com/y6ewzy
In 2007, Michael Wesch put together this video that supposedly “explains what Web 2.0 really is about”:
http://tinyurl.com/6pdz2q
It is a cool video. But the message is all about XML and how it can be used to separate form and content. There was no mention of CSS and XHTML, but no matter. I was writing XML parsers in the ’90s, and XHTML/CSS web design pre-dates “Web 2.0″ as well. No cigar, Professor Wesch.
And now in 2008, the most honest thing we can say is that “Web 2.0″ means whatever the techno-marketeer (ab)using it wants it to mean. Otherwise, why would intelligent people like Isaac O’Bannon still be writing articles asking “What is Web 2.0?”:
http://tinyurl.com/5solok
And, why would McKinsey’s just-released best-of-breed report entitled “Building the Web 2.0 Enterprise” …
http://tinyurl.com/6sxls7
… include no attempt at defining the term other than to list the “Web 2.0 Tools” that comprise or enable it? And even there, the chief ingredient is identified only as “Web Services”, adding more mystery to the mix as one ethereal term is offered up to explain another.
As originated in an Onstartups.com website design posting…
http://tinyurl.com/576sgs
… “Web 2.0″ is like pornography: Nobody has defined it, but you know it when you see it.
Let’s fix your CGI forms interface, Marc. Then, let’s define Web 2.0. Then maybe, just maybe, it will be time to talk about what’s next…
Bruce Arnold, Web Designer, Miami Florida
http://www.PervasivePersuasion.com
[...] TechCrunchIT » Blog Archive » Welcome to Web 3.0: Now Your Other Computer is a Data Center [...]
The various shifts in where the computing gets performed: mainframe, PC, client server, cloud etc - leading to Web 1.0 - Web 3.0 is one aspect of what is happening.
In the future as the amount of knowledge that needs to be deposited in these systems increases concomitant complexity increases exponentialy. The existing structures even in the Web 3.0 are not adequate to scale to complexity - most scale to volume. There is a need for yet another revolution - one which conquers complexity. We believe that solution lies in semanticaly based systems. We have been approached by people using SaleForce platform. After a period of time they are not able to configure it sufficiently to achieve what is needed. Basically, it is configurable but what is configurable is fix. That is the problem with most of the Saas offerings, they try to play the middle road that may work for many initially, but finally suffer from inflexibility.
We have developed Saas enterprise management platform and a service that does not suffer from this problem. It is entirely semantically based and there is no programming involved. Domain specific experts can express their enterprise semantics directly (on line).
Pawel Lubczonok
Here is the evolution of Benioff’s sales pitch:
Salesforce.com 1.0
Give me your data and I’ll charge you every month.
Salesforce.com 2.0
Give me your applications, so I can charge more every month.
Salesforce.com 3.0
Give me everything, so I can get all your money.
Salesforce.com is a lot like Amway, always evangelizing, always recruiting, always selling a lot of soap.
…sounds more like a sales and marketing pitch (i.e. his buddy Jeremy @ CODA) than a change in the software industry. If his company already existed and displayed Web 2.0 characteristics during the Web 2.0 timeframe, why the need for Web 3.0?
“…anyone can innovate, anywhere. Code is written, collaborated on, debugged, tested, deployed, and run in the cloud…” Sounds exactly like what amazon and his own company are doing during Web 2.0.
I think it is still myopic to look at just the future of web…what impacts businesses is future of technology as that is changing consumer behaviour and economics….
How I see it…is that…a niw (read new) world is in the making and the next decade belongs to that.
The niw world is driven by Nano, Intelligence and Wireless technologies and the next web also can be more suitably called the niw Web
Sorry CRM, el goog has appspot and aint going to acquire you.
I wouldn’t underestimate Benioff. He ate Siebel’s lunch in the CRM arena, redefining and improving how salespeople do business. And did I mention he did so by offering the service a fraction of the cost? I look forward to Web 3.0 and the further leveraging of the power of the internet.
Web 3.0 is iphone. Who cares about implementation other than devs and excited execs? Yes apple is owning the next web like they owned mp3. The era of openess that is web 2 fails for mobile. Android is linux for cosumers… Ha ha, i don’t think so.
Marc is a very smart person, but I have to agree with other posts on this forum, this is only a partial view of what lies beyond Web 2.0 and a little self-serving for Marc’s best interests. I tend to think Marc’s vision is more like Web 2.5. Web 2.0 was about the community-generated content. Marc’s post talks about opening the innovation doors for a community of developers who can collectively contribute and innovate in the cloud.
In Andy Grove’s book, “Only the Paranoid Survive” he talks about an Inflection Point that represents a significant change from the old to the new. I’m convinced the next the mobile platform (whether’s it is Android, Apple’s platform or Nokia’s) is such an inflection point that will change communication, innovation, business, for millions of users around the world. Outside the US, the mobile phone is used ten times more than any computer. It is the preferred way to communicate, to access information, to even pay utility bills. Unfortunately, the US hasn’t caught to this…yet.
[...] Marc Benioff - Welcome to Web 3.0: Now Your Other Computer is a Data Center >>Techcrunch post [...]
web 3.0 = Web x 3
the Web itself as the platform - no heavy proprietary protocol/ format
Web beyond the Web - - - being online on a PC: offline, mobile, messaging
Web as a “web” a web of interconnected data, by semantic relationships- not text
There is a new frontier taking shape, and it can be referred to as “Web 3.0″, but the defining characteristics are not the ones articulated by Marc, really! At best it touches on some elements, but his description of realms 1-3 are quite inaccurate (imho).
Here is how I’ve outlined the phases/eras/usage modes (repeatedly over the years via several blog posts):
Web 1.0 - Visual Web (Web Pages Rule)
Web 2.0 - Programmable / Services / API / Application Logic Web (APIs & Services Rule)
Web 3.0 - Structured & Interlinked Data (Smart / Linked Data Rules)
Web 4.0 - Intelligence & Reasoning over Structured & Interlinked Data (Smart Agents Rule)
In pre web computing realms, applications have always been comprised of:
1. (V)iews (Interfaces)
2. (C)ontrollers (Application Logic)
3. (M)odels (Data Models)
Items 1-3 are connected by messaging systems, and in the case of the Web, HTTP delivers the messaging glue across the realms.
So, we are entering a phase where data silo-fication will be on the decline, APIs + Linked Data, and exponential growth of Web driven innovation. Thus, I arrive at similar conclusions as Marc, but my path is distinctly different :-)
I agree here. Coin it what you will, but the real idea here is empowering tiny, unfunded dev teams to make massive apps for the masses.
Leveraging the infrastructure of cloud computing may be less expensive relative to the costs involved in building out a privately owned physical infrastructure, but the cost is not yet at a level I would call inexpensive. Unfortunately, cost is still a barrier of entry to some, and will be for some time. That being said, the cloud does offer power and I think it will promote experimentation and innovation. However, at the end of the day, the data centers are physical, and any cost put into the development and maintenance of these data centers will eventually be passed on to the end consumer. The questions we should be looking at is the following:
What happens if the model doesn’t take off? What happens in 5 years when all of the hardware in these data centers has to be replaced? Where will the money come from? Will the revenues justify the expenditures?
[...] Benioff (CEO of salesforce.com) has written an article for TechCrunchIT about the evolution of Web structure. He explains what the future is bringing and what he labels [...]
I don’t see only advantages in the SaaS models:
- SaaS companies gives more rewards to blackhat hackers: Hack only one place (e.g: Salesforce) and retrieve information from many companies, instead of the effort to hack many places.
- What Salesforce is doing with your information? you are giving a lot of inside information and paying for that?
I don’t see only advantages in the SaaS models:
- SaaS companies gives more rewards to blackhat hackers: Hack only one place (e.g: Salesforce) and retrieve information from many companies, instead hacking many places.
- What Salesforce is doing with your information? are you giving a lot of inside information and paying for that?
- Hacking cases can disrupt the SaaS way of life. Let’s see what happen in the coming years.
[...] techcrunchit.com: Welcome to Web 3.0: Now Your Other Computer is a Data Center [...]
Folks, this is truly propaganda. There are more revolutionary things going on today than the “cloud”.
My company looked at Salesforce for an enterprise, and it was $125 a seat to start - before the add-ons. This adds up quickly when you are in an enterprise with hundreds of salespeople.
SaaS is just a revision of the Timesharing services of the 1950s onwards. New names, different technology but still en evolution of old concepts. Actually Hegelian Thesis, Antithesis and Synthesis - Mainframe Corporate Computing –> replaced by Client Server/web/personal computing –> now synthesising the corporate and personal ideas into SaaS.
[...] Welcome to Web 3.0: Now Your Other Computer is a Data Center » TechCrunchIT » Blog Archive Visi menarik dari Marc Benioff, CEO salesforce.com. Web 1.0: Siapapun dapat bertransaksi, Web 2.0: Siapapun dapat berkolaborasi, Web 3.0: Siapapun dapat berinovasi. Web 3.0 menekankan pada agian layanan sehingga orang dapat fokus pada inovasi. (tags: web2.0 tren) [...]
[...] Please Stand Up?” Apparently Salesforce.com is the next Web 3.0 company, according to the definition of Web 3.0 given by Mark Benioff. Since Salesforce.com is going to become the world’s data center, I [...]
Cannot believe that mikey gave marc this platform to hype his newest thing. How is this anything more than SalesForce’s packaging of the whole concept behind Web Services?
Reminds me of this article..
http://idletogether.com/reflection-on-air-papervision-3d-and-the-evolution-of-technology/
You need to remember to define your acronyms when you first use them, otherwise you seem like a pompous goof who throws out terms without much real thought. You may be right, but speaking as if you know something isn’t the same as if you really do know anything.
I disagree with your use of Web 3.0. It isn’t as if buttons are pushed and, voila, a new web has been unveiled. Each of these advancements is an incremental improvement upon the previous innovation. We can argue until we are blue in the face trying to define Web 3.0 but it is an exercise not undertaken by those who will do the innovating. Instead, the defining is done by the guys standing around the proverbial water cooler while a minority in the office actually does the work. ;)
I should add that web services isn’t a panacea. Most users will still want actual control over certain bits of their data.
[...] TechCrunchIT ger ordet till Marc Benioff (chairman and CEO of salesforce.com). Jag väljer här att plocka upp Marc´s ord och illustrera hans syn på utvecklingen. I tre steg. (Artikel: Welcome to web 3.0: Now Your Othter Computer is a Data Center). [...]
I dont get the graphs - deployment of a mainframe application required SDLC cabling and terminals, and SNA networking that was fiendishly complex; somehow PC deployment is harder and web deplyment is the same as mainframe? I must be misreading the graph - and the labels are quite confusing.
An interesting post by Marc Benioff. I agree with Marc’s conclusion that Web 3.0 will be dominated by unprecedented innovation. While our conclusion is the same, I see the evolution of the web more from the perspective of the end-user.
From the viewpoint of an end-user, dominant waves on the web culminate in the following:
Web 1.0: Interface and Technology for *Web Search*
- Google (Yahoo, etc.)
Web 2.0: Interface and Technology for *Social Networking*
- Facebook; MySpace; LinkedIn
Web 3.0: Interface and Technology for *Personal Information Management and Massive Collaboration*
- Galaxy IT?
No doubt, cloud computing will be instrumental in accelerating innovation on the web. However, I see the user interface as a critical constraint to the general public participating in massive online collaboration. Innovation in the Web 3.0 era will be driven by massive online collaboration. Sure, cloud computing will facilitate massive online collaboration. But without an interface that is easy to understand, easy to use, and easy to collaborate on, user-generated innovation would not be spectacular.
Luckily, at Galaxy IT, we have been working on an interface for facilitating massive online collaboration and semantic management of information; see http://search.galaxyit.com. We are hoping to be a key front-end player in the era of Web 3.0. Our vision is to create a ‘Personal Semantic Internet for Staying Connected.’ We believe that’s what web 3.0 will be about: constantly staying connected with and organizing a massive number of people, massive amount of information, and massive number of digital devices. The infrastructure for ‘constantly staying connected’ will be in the cloud. However, the success of web 3.0 will strongly depend on how easily users navigate and manage the massive amount of information that is stored in the cloud. It’s a pity that this latter issue of information management at the front end is not receiving much attention in our discussion of the future web.
So, what sort of interface do you think will dominate web 3.0? It would be interesting to hear thoughts from different perspectives.
Best,
Rod King.
I’ve had first-hand experience with “Salesfarce”. If it is an example of what we can expect from Web 3.0, then God help us. In seven days time, their tech support could not properly interface a simple Web 1.0 CGI form’s state abbreviations field.
Let’s see… The definition of “Web 2.0″ remains ethereal, and “Web 3.0″ will take place in the clouds. From the standpoint of someone in the trenches–where we have to build websites with buttons that actually click, pages that actually sell, and forms that actually submit–Mr. Benioff comes across as just another techno-marketeer using labels that mean nothing to sell “solutions” that solve little.
[...] a recent article on TechChrunchIT, chairman and CEO of Salesforce.com Mark Benioff brings up the term Web 3.0 to label the third wave [...]
[...] Full post here [...]
A good example of an Open Source, Mobile, Web 3.0 application: http://code.google.com/p/pixie-os/ - have a look, it’s a really cool mobile web operating system (feel free to argue about the tech terms on our project’s discussion group, we’ve got good answers ;-)
this kind of innovation isn’t new at all. if you look on a site like freshmeat or sourceforge a larger part of applications are web based, this is a trend which is going on for years. the only difference is the industrialisation of this open process within large corporate platforms, which focus on certain market segments and business models, and rely on the exploitation of the open source production. many net applications failed already: unified messaging, microsoft asp, java based office suites.. users as well as developers and small companies will have to develope a better “consciousness” of their own situation in terms of revenue, freedom of speech, ease of use and privacy. in the end the largest of the companies like google resemble already public services, and will have to obey to democratic control in the long run.
I personally think more thought is spent on thinking up silly buzzwords instead of actual clarification about what the buzzword in fact actually is. If the web 2.0 buzzword naming mishap is anything to go by, we’re in for more confusion when web 3.0 buzzwording starts to get more popular.
How about instead of short, encrypted explanations of what all these buzzwords are, we actually take the time to write one document that explains it well. Because I can see that thousands of “what is web 3.0?” articles being written this year (2008), which will all say one thing after another (with minimal similarities).
What I don’t understand is that the definitions for web 1.0 and 2.0 are based on their impact to end users. To argue that a third iteration of the online paradigm is in order when it is not the end user products (typically still falling in line with the products from web 2.0 copmanies) but the development platform for those products that have changed. Just because we have APIs doesn’t mean that users are out there building facebook apps. Developers are building facebooks apps and users are consuming them through social media and all that is web 2.0.
[...] Welcome to Web 3.0: Now Your Other Computer is a Data Center [...]
[...] Benioff 原文链接：Welcome to Web 3.0: Now Your Other Computer is a Data Center 翻译：bill.chen [...]
[...] 原文：Welcome to Web 3.0: Now Your Other Computer is a Data Center 翻译：bill.chen 从10年前一直到现在，我们一直在见证一场决定性的变革：从客户端-服务器的软件到作为服务的软件。Google, eBay, 和 Amazon.com等企业在消费市场建立了互连网应用程序的价值，同时salesforce.com，Google，和其它一些公司也一直在证明相同的模式也会在企业级市场取得成功。 [...]
[...] Go read the rest of the article here [...]
[...] Benioff 原文链接：Welcome to Web 3.0: Now Your Other Computer is a Data Center 翻译：bill.chen [...]
[...] Benioff 原文链接：Welcome to Web 3.0: Now Your Other Computer is a Data Center 翻译：bill.chen [...]
[...] Benioff 原文链接：Welcome to Web 3.0: Now Your Other Computer is a Data Center 翻译：bill.chen [...]
[...] Benioff 原文链接：Welcome to Web 3.0: Now Your Other Computer is a Data Center 翻译：bill.chen [...]
[...] Benioff 原文链接：Welcome to Web 3.0: Now Your Other Computer is a Data Center 翻译：bill.chen [...]
I’d have liked to have been able to point out the level of cheek required to repeatedly insert your own company’s name amongst Google & Amazon, but unfortunately I have less time than I thought to go and throw a few buzzwords at a text file and call it Web 4.0.
Benioff deserves credit for being able to sustain a ridiculous P/E for several years while failing to generate meaningful profits. And for shameless salesmanship.
For the record, it wasn’t Salesforce.com who ate Siebel’s lunch; it was Oracle and SAP. A few exceptions aside, large companies are not deploying SaaS at scale and traditional software is alive and well. Just look at the growth of SAP and ORCL.
Customers want solutions to their business problems. They don’t want a toolkit so they can build their own solutions. They don’t want you to outsource R&D to them or to some lame startup that you hold over the barrel to join your “ecosystem.” They don’t want the software equivalent of Wikipedia. SaaS has some great benefits but don’t screw it all up by insisting everyone else will cobble together a bunch of third-party widgets built on your platform. Salesforce.com would do well to improve their service and marketing pieces first, then offer a good order management app or product configurator.
Is Marc really a visionary if he named the company “Salesforce.com” then chose as a ticker “CRM” and is now talking about platforms? More like he finds a story with legs and markets the hell out of it. It’s fun watching him kiss up to AAPL and GOOG.
I agree with this in principle, when it comes to the the cost of infrastructure etc and many other things, however one thing is the cost of development, and the technology stack of the web (HTML+javascript, and whatever backend) is really a mess of hacks upon hacks that is NOT cost effective to develop in comparision to client/server apps at the moment. Sure platforms like RAILS are moving in the right direction in regards t oteh cost to develop and maintain, but really before this happens, the WEB platform needs to grow up , and probably be redesigned significantly.
[...] should also read this post about Web 3.0 from SalesForce.com CEO Marc Benioff (tip): Marc expands on the idea that while Web 1.0 was about [...]
[...] August 2008 at 9:50 am (Innovation, Web2.0) You should read this post about Web 3.0 from SalesForce.com CEO Marc Benioff (tip): Marc expands on the idea that while Web 1.0 was about [...]
[...] ben helemaal niet akkoord met Marc Benoiff, CEO van salesforce.com, als hij voorspelt dat PaaS het nieuwe web, oftewel web 3.0 is. Oké, het is maar een buzz word, maar het zou hem wel [...]
[...] Developers Are Hooked On Iterations TechCrunchIT has a thought piece by Marc Benioff, chairman and CEO of salesforce.com, wherein he makes clear his [...]
I think this is a very real wave of change. Business people are mashing up apps to create new solutions and services more rapidly than the IT function can cope with. CIOs have a headache and they must refocus to keep up. Web3.0 (not sure I like the term though) will redefine technology innovation and ‘business technology’ and soon we won’t remember the days of Client-Server computing.
See my post Prepare for the Future of IT Organization, or Be Left Behind for more on how this phenomenon is shaping IT.
I think that Marc has point in that infrastructure as a service, as provided by Amazon AWS, Google App Engine and others, is truly disruptive in that it makes it possible to launch an online business with very limited resources. Read more in my recent post about the return of Web 3.0.
[...] piece was followed (at least in my reading, if not necessarily chronologically) by a guest post on TechCrunchIT by Salesforce CEO Mark Benioff. In ‘Welcome to Web 3.0: Now Your Other [...]
[...] Benioff 原文链接：Welcome to Web 3.0: Now Your Other Computer is a Data Center 翻译：bill.chen [...]
[...] The post is here. [...]
[...] Video: Michael Dell’s succession plan: “Stay away from trucks” - UberPulse.com Marc Benioff, CEO of salesforce.com. explains Web 3.0 - TechCrunchIT.com MegaWest CEO George Stapleton interviewed on CNBC Google CEO rebuts [...]
[...] Continue reading on TechcrunchIT… [...]
[...] recently got sent this very well-written article by Marc Benioff of Salesforce.com and a this video of Eric Schmidt from Google both answering the [...]
[...] you can go back to the mainframe years as Marc Benioff does in his recent post on TechcrunchIT, I think it is much easier to start with the most recent [...]
[...] 原文作者：Marc Benioff原文链接：Welcome to Web 3.0: Now Your Other Computer is a Data Center翻译：bill.chen从10年前一直到现在，我们一直在见证一场决定性的变革：从客户端-服务器的软件到作为服务的软件。Google, eBay, 和 Amazon.com等企业在消费市场建立了互连网应用程序的价值，同时salesforce.com，Google，和其它一些公司也一直在证明相同的模式也会在企业级市场取得成功。 到目前为止基于Web应用程序的转型已经产生了两个强烈的浪潮。现在我们看到了第三个，我们称之为We>>>KEYAUTOBLOG 文章信息 [...]
[...] been mulling over Marc Benioff’s guest post on TechCrunch for a few days now. I wanted to really get my arms around what he proposes Web 3.0 to [...]
Using “Web 3.0″ for naming the trend Marc Benioff speaks about is really a bit of PR trick but actual evolution of Web seems to really lead to using PaaS whereever is possible - and it’s possible almost everywhere.
All the major Web players are building platforms to be used as services. Actually, the much hyped “Semantic Web” paradigm (which still needs more proof to look worthy of that hype) is also platform as a service - if the semantic web future comes true there will be 3-5 major players dominating the field, as semantic technologies require both much computing power and technological know-how. We shouldn’t expect having much semantics processing software on our desktop or behind corporate firewalls - most of semantic Web apps will be in the cloud and communicating with external extensions through APIs - generally the way Salesforce/Force.com works now. The business model could be different, however - ad-supported, partner/affiliate supported or whatever - but Marc Benioff doesn’t speak about business models - just looking at Web evolution more from business/developer side.
[...] Add a buzzword: This is so Web 3.0 (or, if you like, here). [...]
[...] TechCrunchIT » Blog Archive » Welcome to Web 3.0: Now Your Other Computer is a Data Cent… - Marc Benioff (of Salesforce.com) delivers his definition of Web 3.0 (cringe): "The new rallying cry of Web 3.0 is that anyone can innovate, anywhere. Code is written, collaborated on, debugged, tested, deployed, and run in the cloud. When innovation is untethered from the time and capital constraints of infrastructure, it can truly flourish." [...]
[...] é uma síntese das idéias do CEO da Salesforce, Marc Benioff, publicada no site Techcrunchit.com. Embora seja uma visão parcial, alguns pontos devem ser considerados na estratégia de [...]
[...] Welcome to Web 3.0: Now Your Other Computer is a Data Center - really getting more and more easy to build scalable applications right in the cloud [...]
[...] Hele innlegget kan du lese her Web 3.0 [...]
[...] @ 1:43 am by Darren Just catching up on my blogs and I found this really interesting article on TechCrunchIT thanks to Michael at [...]
[...] TechCrunch [...]
By Dan D. Gutierrez
CEO of HostedDatabase.com
When we launched the web’s first Database-as-a-Service in 1999, we were convinced of the viability of the then-called ASP (application service provider) industry. Fast forward nearly 10 years, and Mr. Benioff words resonate with growing success seen in recent years. We made the right pioneering move back then, and we’re grateful to still be going strong.
I agree with Dom - it’s going Web3D.0 (thank Heavens I patented it b4 O’Reilly!!) but not in a lame Second Life kinda way but more Neave.tv or PicLens UWayCoolr kinda way*
;)) Peace*
Discussion on a theme 3.0 goes for a long time.
The basic difference of a web 1.0 from a web 2.0 etc. should be Functionality.
Thus: Web 1.0 is an access to the information placed in a network the Internet, on distance a clique.
Web 2.0 This display of private world of the person to the external carrier in dynamics. Services where conditions for independent generating Information are created.
Web 3.0? This formation of the person by means of network technologies (programmno-technical systems) and change of world around by means of network technologies. The third web can become the mechanism itself to regulation of human population.
Whether you want to call it web 2.5 or web 3.0 or blatent marketing, as a startup company, Force.com HAS enabled us to build applications which we simply couldn’t have considered building before. It manages the data for us, and provides us with a platform that is scalable enough for the types of customers we are targetting, so I for one am grateful for his vision.
[...] Web 3.0の定義 Web2.0の次は、Web3.0が来るとは誰しも考え付くことだが、Web2.0のようにコンセプトだけに終わるのか微妙なところだと思う。Salesforce.comのCEO Marc Benioff は、Welcome to Web 3.0: Now Your Other Computer is a Data Centerという記事のなかでWeb3.0の定義をしている。彼は、Web3.0を一言でInnovateだと表現している。Web2.0は、web上のプラットフォームに誰でも参加して、集合知を共有するという感じであったが、Web3.0は、ビジネスを革新させるものだという。すべてのリソースは、インターネット上にあり、以前よりすばやくプラットフォームを開発できて、ビジネス的に付加価値の大きいものを提供できると言っている。確かに、Web2.0の時代に流行ったサービスは、あってもなくてもよさそうなサービスに見えた。SNSは、確かに役に立つが、こんなに時間をとられるなら、なくてもいいかなと時々思ってしまう。Web3.0における革新性は、確かにプラットフォームを開発してサービスを提供する側から見ると、かなり楽になりそうな気がする。そんなに簡単に様々なサービスを開発できるのなら、webサービスブローカーは、出現すると思う。次は、それはめざそうか。 [...]
An article defining Web 3.0 by the CEO of Salesforce. … of course it’s gonna be about SAAS. What did you think?
Well If i was the CEO of Twitter and i was to write an article about Web 3.0, of course it’s gonna be about Micro-Blogging. What did you think?
If i was the CEO of Nokia and i was to write another article about Web 3.0, of course it’s going to be about the convergence within mobile phones. What did you think? No prizes for guessing that right.. DUH!!
Bottom line, Web 3.0 has got to impact the global community as a whole, not just the business community.. DUH AGAIN… it should be about INNOVATION, a revolution… not TRANSFORMATION from Software To Web.. DUH! Transformation from software to web in layman’s terms is called
… UPGRADING…
that’s all… Gimme a break Marc.
i like the SaaS platform though but it’s never going to be good enough to champion the Web 3.0 cause because of privacy, ID theft, access times, security and data loss issues.
Recent general survey in the Americas, Europe and Asia concluded that only 2.5% of the 5,230 participants have heard of SaaS. And out of that 3%, 24% have heard of Salesforce, the remaining 76% goes to Google Apps/ Zoho / 37 Signals Apps and Acrobat.Com.
[...] Welcome to Web3.0 - what it all means Filed under: Architecture, Salesforce, Strategy — Tags: saas — cairlinn @ 9:59 am TechCrunchIT has a great interview with Marc Benioff - CEO of Salesforce - Welcome to Web 3.0: Now Your Other Computer is a Data Center. [...]
[...] Read the rest at TechCrunch IT [...]
[...] having rented cars a few times, I have come to realize the following: In this age of Web 2.0 (and, according to some, Web 3.0), when Software as a Service is growing faster than ever, the on-demand model can be [...]
[...] seems as though Marc Benoff (CEO of SalesForce.com) [...]
[...] Welcome to Web 3.0 - Now Your Other Computer is a Data Center [...]
[...] in the blogosphere about this. A posting by Marc Benioff, chairman and CEO of salesforce.com in TechCrunch, suggests that digital companies and programmers need to grasp the enormity of Web 3.0 and its [...]
[...] clue what that even means. Well Marc Benioff, the chairman and CEO of SalesForce.com, wrote a great article on TechCrunchIT that gives one perspective of what “Web 3.0″ means — it’s short and [...]
[...] The entire article is here I am sure you will find this a fascinating read. [...]
[...] août, 2008 · Pas de commentaire Marc Benioff, patron de salesforce.com, a écrit un article très intéressant sur TechCrunchIT à propos de l’avenir du [...]
[...] posts en TechCrunchIT encontré un post realmente interesante, que habla sobre lo que va a ser la Web [...]