Web 3.0 - Web Apps that work offline

The Internet is in a transition period from the Web 2.0 era(about 1998-2008) to Web 2.5(2008-2010).  During this time a whole slew of different applications and innovations will come about that will be the determining factors for the Internet of tomorrow.  There’s no definitive era’s or time frames of what makes each version of the web except for what the experts and industry leaders have been touting off.  So these are my personal estimates.

Web 3.0, as stated on Wiki, is estimated to begin in 2010.  So these next two years will be crucial to the transformation of the foundation for the new Internet.  Starting as early as 2005, and the majority in 2007, there have been online web applications popping up.  These include web based CRM software, corporate Wiki’s, web office applications, and others.  I believe this will be the heart of the Web 3.0 evolution.  Everyday applications that are currently used on the PC will move over to web based versions.  This will create subscription based content and modules.  Additionally this will also help combat piracy as it’s much harder to replicate an online application as it is for an offline application.

2008 has become the cornerstone for these web apps and now the bigger issue is…  What if your Internet or server goes down?  Company’s still need the ability to work even if they lose connectivity.  Welcome to Web 2.5 and 3.0, where there are offline versions of the online web apps that will sync up the next time you reconnect to the Internet.  Take for example, Etelos, which was founded in 1999 and provides on-demand, browser-based applications such as CRM and Project for Google Apps.  The Etelos Marketplace (TM) also allows developers to license, distribute, and host their applications.  According to this TechCrunch article, Etelos has announced that their new platform will allow web apps to run offline.  Then re-sync with the online version once you reconnect.

I think these technologies still have maturing to do.  For example, in regards to Google Apps, any document or data you create on their service becomes Google property.  I don’t think corporations will like this very much as it creates privacy issues.  There must be some sort of change in this arena to give corporations or any user for that matter a warm fuzzy feeling inside about their data.  Until then, we will be stuck in this transition period.