Web 2.0 brought us user-generated content and interactivity – think Twitter, Facebook, Slack and Zoom. It enabled online startup Dollar Shave Club to build global recognition in 2012 with a YouTube video that cost a mere $4,500 (£3,300) to produce. The company rattled the previously bomb-proof incumbents in its market to such an extent that Unilever reportedly paid $1bn to acquire it four years later.
Web 3.0 has brought us even more disruption, in the shape of technologies such as big data, machine learning and blockchain. Companies are understandably keen, therefore, to get ahead of Web 4.0. Definitions of it vary, but this iteration promises immersive and highly personalised online services, blurring the physical and the digital.
What will that look like? The metaverse is both the biggest Web 4.0 promise and the biggest threat. It’s a threat to incumbents such as Facebook (now Meta), largely because of its decentralised nature. It’s a promise to startups because they may be able to harness the tech in ways that could give them a competitive edge.