SAN FRANCISCO–What’s the definition of Web 3.0? Data, LinkedIn’s Reid Hoffman said in a Wednesday afternoon keynote conversation.
Hoffman spoke Wednesday night at the Web 2.0 conference here, where he also talked about the value of data. “One of the really important things good Internet companies do is not ambush their users,” he said in a conversation with AllThingsD’s Liz Gannes.
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According to Hoffman, Web 1.0 consisted of files, where users operated under pseudonyms in chat rooms. He defined Web 2.0 as the emergence of Web apps, where a community of users utilized their real name. Finally, there’s Web 3.0 – unfortunately, the platform that it uses isn’t a mobile one, but one that’s predicated upon data, he said.
LinkedIn, which filed for an IPO in January, now counts over 100 million users. This month, the site launched a LinkedIn Today news site, LinkedIn Skills, LinkedIn Maps, and updated its LinkedIn iOS app with the new news focus. With each, LinkedIn took its accumulated store of data, mined it, and returned it back to users.
In much the same way, Hoffman said, users may come to expect to trade their own data for some benefit, such as the way Mint.com asks for total access to a user’s financial history, but also provides a way of saving monry. But, he added, apps developers shouldn’t expect to be able to share information freely among each other. “The really key thing in data is that certain kinds of data are pretty innocuous,” he said. “You can’t get ambushed by them.”
Some, he added, are expected to be closed, such as credit card numbers and passwords. And some live in a middle ground. “Trading around a user’s location,” Hoffman said. “You have to be really careful”.
Some companies want data to be completely open, Hoffman said. While that might be acceptable for disclosing the type of movies that an individual likes, users might be more guarded about divulging who their friends are.
Hoffman closed by noting that LinkedIn could ask for gender information, but doesn’t. “As a general principle, you should only ask for data when you think you can provide a value proposition for users,” he said.