By Allan Maurer
ARLINGTON, VA—You may not have completely acclimated yourself to so-called Web 2.0 technologies yet, but get ready for the next step in online evolution. Hooman Radfar, founder and CEO of Widget developer Clearspring Technologies, says Web 3.0 is already underway.
Radfar, who will participate in a panel discussion at the Second Annual Southeast Venture Conference slated for Feb. 27-28 at Tysons Corner, VA (see: www.seventure.org), says starting Clearspring taught him more in three years than six years of school as an undergraduate at Penn State and in grad school at Carnegie Mellon.
Radfar and Austin Fath founded Clearspring in 2004 after finishing graduate school at Carnegie Mellon University.
Clearspring makes widgets, primarily thought of as a key Web 2.0 tool, although Radfar says the company is already creating what can be seen as Web 3.0 tools.
Clearspring’s flagship product simplifies the creation, syndication, and tracking of widget marketing campaigns, a Web 2.0 technology.
More than money
Widgets are bits of code Web developers, bloggers or marketers can add to sites to perform a variety of tasks and personalize sites. Widgets include games, stock tickers, audio players, quizzes and slideshows, among other things.
Clearspring raised a $5.5 million second round in March led by Novak Biddle Ventures and ZB Ventures with participation from well-known technology and media executives, including Steve Case, Ted Leonsis and Mark Jung.
Radfar says their backing includes more than just money. “I communicate constantly with all of them,” he tells TechJournal South. Ted Leonsis, for instance. I have his cell phone number and talk to him a couple of times a week. The minimum I see any of them is once a month.”
The help they give varies, ranging from marketing advice to contacts to suggestions for approaching media they want to engage. “Our institutional investors have contributed as well,” he says.
Web 3.0 on the way
Widgets, says Radfar, “Are part of a broader disaggregation trend on the Web.” That trend is part of what has widely been called Web 2.0, although even on Radfar’s own blog, Widgify.com, comments question whether the term “Web 2.0” was about a real phenomenon or merely a marketing gimmick to help attract investors.
Radfar says many things people refer to as Web 2.0, from blogs to social networking, are really “features,” not technologies. Wiki’s, which allow user participation, RSS feeds and Widgets, on the other hand, are Web 2.0.
Web 1.0, propagated during the initial dot com boom, “was a pervasive publication mechanism,” he says. Essentially, it was a shift of print to the Web.
Web 2.0, on the other hand, he sees as: “The Web as platform and atomized content.” It transforms the Web from a publication mechanism to a platform for online services atomized into reusable components that can be mixed and matched to create new services. On his blog, Radfar calls this “A shift from unstructured data (HTML) to structured data (Web services/RSS/microformats).
The next step, Web 3.0, says Radfar, “Will be about integrated experiences.” He sees the beginning of this in RSS aggregator sites such as Netvibes, Pageflakes, and Uber. He cites Marc Canter, who calls these tools “Digital Lifestyle Aggregators.”
DLA services let users manage content and services across platforms and social networks. Another name for Web 3.0 technologies is “the semantic Web.”
Radfar says Web 3.0 is a “remixer.” The transformation is already underway, he says.
At 55-employee Clearspring, Radfar says, “We still have some tricks up our sleeve.” Those include new, Web 3.0 ways for developers to use Clearspring Widgets.
On the Web: www.clearspring.com; www.widgify.com
© 2008, TechJournal South. All rights reserved.
