Web 3.0: Elements of a Pub-Sub/Alert Web

In my opinion, the Web is getting to a breaking point because of information overload. Just think about the number of sites you visit on a regular basis today vs. in the early days of web. It is not that the Web has less interesting stuff today, but that it has too many interesting sites with too much happening with a growing noise to signal ratio. End result: we come back from a 2hr stay on Wikipedia/digg/youtube thinking we just wasted much of that time.

So, how do we fix it? The answer lies in getting the things we want, when we want, where we want (and nothing else).

This is the Push Web, Pub Sub web, Alertpedia, etc. Web 3.0. It is more proactive and personalized than Web 1.0 and will look as good as Web 2.0.

Here are some of the elements of a successful Web 3.0:

1. Open content channels: I think that the tools for this have been slowly gathering: RSS feeds, Atom, Yahoo Pipes, Channels (remember them?). I don't think we need to wait for the ultimate "semantic web", but some more specialization of these protocols will help. E.g., I like CAP (Common Alert Protocol), Geo RSS.

2. Usable interfaces: Geeks like us know and love RSS feed readers, but the Billions of regular folks are not as comfortable with them as they are with IE / Firefox. Agree? I feel that answer may actually be already here: Emails and Text messages. Or, someone will come up with a new Push browser. We don't want another Pointcast though.

3. Content manipulation / filtering: How to combine 10 feeds, filter the junk out of them, personalize them for my preferences? Yahoo Pipes goes a long way. More to be done in making it easier to use for regular folks and personalization. Plus, we have very little patience for an uninteresting email alert. So, the content filters have to get much much smarter.. dare I say semantically capable and intelligent.

4. User generated content: With the necessary digg-like quality management by peers, reputation systems, spam filters. Much richer in content filtering than Web 2.0. Read [3] above.

5. A scalable publish-subscribe server: Imagine a world where every piece of information is submitted to a googleplex-like server farm, the content is analyzed, extracted, filtered, and matched with subscriptions in real time, and alerts go out in real time. Imagine getting a real time google alert as soon as some web page in Tanzania mentions your name. That requires a serious scale in data volumes (which search engines have tackled) and speed (which no one has tackled well so far).

6. New protocols for publishing, delivering, and subscribing to the content efficiently, cleanly, in a REST-ful kind of way.

7. And, to get it all started, a Killer App for Push content. We believe that Alertpedia, Knownow, Pubsub are all worthy attempts towards that goal.

dharani

http://www.alertpedia.com - Previewing Web 3.0, today.

It's the time for travel and traffic alerts

We have just added two new alert categories by popular demand:

Traffic alerts: Get alerts when there is congestion / repairs / jam on your commute road during the times you pick.

e.g., email me when there is bad traffic on I-278 at 8AM. We will send you alerts during 7-9

Travel alerts: Get alerts when ANY airline announces a price cut between two US cities.

Craigslist alerts in time for your Christmas shopping

This is why Craigslist works better than Ebay for me: it is local, it is fast. You want something, you look up in your area on craigslist, find it, drive down 15min, check it out, bring it home, done.

Instant gratification and the ability to check out the product beats buying a black box from some seller in Estonia.

But the secret is out. So many people are buying via craigslist that items disappear before you get some free time to check it out. On the other hand, you can't skip your work and meals and watch craigslist just in the hope that someone will post that Wii for $50.

Alertpedia to the rescue. You can now receive alerts when there is a posting about some item on Craigslist in your area. Isn't that neat?

Like, how about a Wii on sale for $50 in new york city? Wouldn't we all love that?

Pushing to save some time

Here's a christmas gift idea for the mankind: extra free time in a day.

Seriously, the single most precious commodity that we don't seem to have enough of is Time. Doesn't matter your job, bank balance, who your boss is (or if you are your own boss).. time is something we all need more of. To play with our kids, to read that book, call our families, or just do nothing for 10 minutes.

I used to think that the Internet bought me time with all the information at my fingertips. No more waiting at a travel agent's office, I just go to travelocity and book that trip. No more buying a paper magazine: online magazines nicely give the news, for free. And, digg makes it even easier with others telling us what is worth reading.

But, did you notice that we are still short of time? Especially because we have sooo much information to "deal with". Yes, digg filters out news for me, but it shows me cool stuff that I would never ever have wasted my time reading! And, forget about going back to newspapers and local news to sift through the editorial gunk. Internet is good. But almost too good and too much.

So, what are we to do? Remember the good old days when there was a Jeeves-like butler who would take care of things so that Bertie could focus on more important things in his life? A personalized, always-awake assistant who knows exactly what you want and filters out all other minutae. Only, we can't all afford a personal butler any more. But we can afford Alertpedia: it is free!

Think of Alertpedia like that. It monitors hundreds of web sites on your behalf and automatically filters 99% of the junk out and tells you when something of importance to you happens. This is what we believe will be the next generation Internet: Web Push. Right information (and nothing else) comes to you at the right time.

Like, how about a low fare air ticket to Hawaii so that you can really kick back and enjoy your extra free time? Watch for the farewatcher alerts on Alertpedia, coming soon.
PS: Ever tried forgetting your blackberry at home before vacations? Try it. It works! :)

Welcome to Alertpedia Blog!

Thank you for visiting Alertpedia (originally called alertearth.org). This blog is intended for feature announcements, thoughts, and user feedback on the website http://www.alertpedia.com, a non-profit web service for email alerts on health news, product recalls, earthquakes, weather events and more. The site was started in response to the Indian ocean tsunami but has since grown.

Here's a bit more on Alertpedia:

What is Alertpedia? Alertpedia is a free, reliable, and comprehensive online alerting service - like Wikipedia for Alerts. It monitors hundreds of reliable news sources and sends out email alerts when there is information of importance to you. This way, all of us can lead safer lives with more free time to do other things! Examples:

• Health: High levels of bacteria detected in local lakes, or new tips / cures for dealing with asthma


• Product Recalls: Certain toys are recalled due to unacceptable levels of lead; or food with peanuts in them.


• Weather: A thunderstorm is headed towards Somerset county, NJ


• Earthquakes: A 5.2 quake occurred in California 1hr ago

We are constantly adding new features and news categories to the site - our goal is to make this a one-stop shop for alerts on all of world's information.

What are the benefits of using Alertpedia ?

1. Stay safe by being better informed


2. Save time. You can now avoid repeatedly checking zillions of websites for infrequent and unpredictable events.


3. Single place to monitor hundreds of reliable information sources


4. You get a chance to help others by reporting alerts to the site

How does it get the information? Alertpedia continuously monitors and gathers information from hundreds of reliable sources like the US govt bulletins, Yahoo!, etc. Users, like you, have the ability to report news items you come across and add to the many valuable sources of information.

How to get the most out of Alertpedia?

1. Use filter words or specific search terms when you set up alerts.


2. If you happen to chance upon useful news articles anywhere on the internet, report it at the site for the benefit of yourself & other users.


3. Spread the word. Tell your friends to sign-up for their alerts. Our experience has been that they will be thankful to you!

Dharani