October 2,2007

The Web Is Evolving

recently consumed

web concept: Web 3.0

tasting notes

Somehow, I’ve found myself reading a lot lately on many different forms of evolution. There is the RNA-first theory of biological evolution, where the gene is the basic building block of all life. Its a truly remarkable theory, which I hope to learn all about next week on my plane ride to LA where I will bury myself in Richard Dawkins’ The Selfish Gene. This return for me back to burying my nose in scientific reading was inspired by both a fascinating chapter in Carl Sagan’s Shadow of Forgotten Ancestors on evolution of the cell and by Douglas Adams’ quote in Salmon of Doubt citing Richard Dawkins as one of his greatest inspirations of all time.

Besides biological evolution, I have found myself researching cultural evolution. It was after reading an awesome article on Web 3.0 that didn’t hesitate to use the (previously foreign) concept of the meme all over the place that I decided to do some Wikipediing on the topic. The idea is that while a gene is the basic unit of biological evolution, the meme (an idea, a fad, a belief) is the unit of cultural evolution. This meme is passed along, replicated, and mutated until it either dies or becomes an part of the social fabric.

Thinking about both cultural evolution and biological evolution together in the context of what I do everyday, it struck me the similarities in the origin of our biological universe and the way the web evolves. The idea that stuck in my head was that the social nature of the internet allows memes to roam freely, information passing with ease from person to person in a way that builds upon itself. This is highly comparable to the “primordial soup“, wherein genetic units muddled about until forming symbiotic relationships that lead to greater organisms than possible before.

I will be giving a presentation to the strategy team at Organic on the definition of Web 3.0 and the current frontrunners present on the web today. But, in the meantime, I thought I would toss out a little science and a little web onto the blog page here, just to get the ideas out of my brain, so that I don’t get too nerdy when presenting to my fellow Organics.

In the beginning…

the evolution of the cell
- Free form DNA swam in the primordial ooze
- Membranes grew in order to house and protect the DNA
- DNA mutated slowly
- Useful DNA was passed along to future generations before the benefit of this information was even known
- Specialized biological tools (i.e. chlorophyll eating, protection from sickness) were incorporated into greater multi-cell organisms

the evolution of the web
- Free form HTML code swam in the primordial ooze of the web
- Web pages and sites grew housing and protecting the code
- Every information unit that was passed along to the next was an opportunity for mutation of that idea
- Seemingly good ideas (such as RSS) would pass form web site to web site even before it was know what the ideas could be used for
- Specialized internet tools (Google Maps) are incorporated into greater organisms