With this wrap up, the Web 2.0 annual conference is over, and not a moment too early by the sound of it. 

there were few revelations, few moments where you had the exhilarating experience of seeing something that was about to change the world. Every conversation I had began with discussing the underwhelming nature of Web 2.0.”

Source: Rough Type: Nicholas Carr’s Blog: Welcome Web 3.0!

Aside from whether its 2.0, or whatever.0 I thought this description quoted in Nicholas’s blog summarised the next vision well.

the Holy Grail for developers of the semantic Web is to build a system that can give a reasonable and complete response to a simple question like: “I’m looking for a warm place to vacation and I have a budget of $3,000. Oh, and I have an 11-year-old child.” Under today’s system, such a query can lead to hours of sifting — through lists of flights, hotel, car rentals — and the options are often at odds with one another. Under Web 3.0, the same search would ideally call up a complete vacation package that was planned as meticulously as if it had been assembled by a human travel agent.

That metaphor would fit well with banking too.  I can see the parts of what has become known as web 2.0 includes examples of some of the right building blocks.  Here are a few I have noted, and I don’t pretend this is complete, but these are all new.

• social networks, wiki’s
• microformats (mini apps that can be run anywhere)
• blogs
• blog aggregation sites
• cool, fast, simple ajax sites
• OpenId (authentication model separate from applications)
• web based applications, and services that are completely network centric
• Google, Microsoft, Yahoo dominance
• Search as a legitimate navigational tool

These are all tools, that individually are simply cool, but in danger of becoming overwhelming due to their number.  Together these will start to sort out into a strategy, and new grouping, that could facilitate the semantic web.