“Inventions have long since reached their limit, and I see no hope for further developments” – Roman engineer Julius Sextus Frontinus, A.D. 10.

“By the turn of this century, we will live in a paperless society” – Roger Smith, chairman of General Motors, 1986.

“I think the Leafs just might win the Cup one of these years” – Lots of different people, lots of different years.

What ties these quotes together is obvious – Julius Sextus Frontinus and Roger Smith would have made good Toronto Maple Leafs fans. Sorry, I mean what ties them together is that being in the business of making predictions is tough, because accurate predictions are difficult to make, more often than not people get a little too ambitious in determining what they think the future will bring, and often end up looking rather silly in retrospect.

But with that in mind, this article in the Times Online goes about painting a picture of the world wide web in the future – and I’m not just talking about the Web 2.0 here, or even the Web 3.0… they’ve headed all the way out to the Web 4.0 baby! How we’ll all get there from here is as follows:

Each decade in turn corresponds to an engineering focus on either ‘the front end’ or ‘back end’ of the web. Web 1.0 was a back-end decade, focusing on the web’s basic platform, its link structure and navigation system. Web 2.0 was front end, with a heavy focus on users and usability, clean-looking sites, and people making connections with one another.

In Web 3.0, the emphasis will revert to the back end, with a renewal of the web’s key index – the essential data that is catalogued by search engines like Google. That in turn, Mr Spivack says, will make way for Web 4.0, another ‘front-end decade’, only with more advanced programs than the likes of Facebook.

I find this structure quite interesting, particularly how Spivack (which is even a futuristic sounding name I might add) highlights a pendulum effect back and forth between front and back end technologies. There are also a ton of interesting insights into various technologies being developed that include, without giving away too much, what some people are calling the Google Killer. But alas, some of the other predictions might be off on their timing, as one of the commentors indicates at the bottom of the page:

I was working in AI at IBM 20 years ago. We believed natural language parsing was possible and would arrive. Nope. It still hasn’t and won’t within the timescale of Web 3.0 either nor Web 4.0Me, I’m still waiting for Web 1.0 Service Pack 1…

Leave it to a guy from Dorking to help keep things in perspective.