The concept of Web 3.0 largely precedes Web3, and the two movements are completely unrelated. Web 3.0 is meant as an extension of the Web via Web standards. The term was coined by Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the World Wide Web.
Its alternative name, “Semantic Web,” hints at what it is about. The goal is to make Internet data machine-readable.
It all comes down to the realization that each and every server requests the same “type” of data from users, bothering them with similar requests (such as their address), and preventing services that don’t know each other from communicating based on the data itself.
How to solve this? With “ontology,” which defines the relationship between data models and embeds this metadata information directly beside the data itself.
Two of the most widespread semantic data formats are RDF and JSON-LD. Schema.org is a mature database that contains the semantics of common objects across the web.
Advantages
- Data itself, by essence, can easily be shared across various environments, protocols, and software. Adding semantics directly to the data itself transforms data into a highly-interoperable piece of information and opens the door for use-cases that weren’t possible beforehand.
Limitations
- To make semantic data achievable, one must create a common shared database of all the data models developers can possibly create. This has proven to be challenging, both in terms of coming up with a comprehensive list of data models for all applications possible and in terms of infrastructure, as when semantic data is received, the receiver must fetch the data model database (such as the schema.org server) to process the semantic data itself.
Could it be useful for our requirements?
- Semantic data is already used across various applications, in DWeb (such as in AT Protocol with Lexicons, or in IPFS with IPLD) and in SSI (Verifiable Credentials standard) most notably, and those two fields are crucial to our requirements!
- Unlike infrastructure-based protocols, which are often interoperable only within their own protocol, semantic data unlocks the potential for truly interoperable web interactions. As a result, as interoperability and data provenance verifiability are requirements for our project, Web 3.0 is a crucial building block.