This is kind of drifting from the topic, butâŚ
Roughly speaking:
âWeb 1.0â was the original, largely static, websites with limited interaction (basically limited to forms), and started with the invention of the web in 1991.
The first HTML websites I created were in around 1994 and, in those days, some web browsers didnât even support tables.
âWeb 2.0â was then introduction of dynamic website content that could act as real applications rather than simple static content. Some early examples of this were in the late 1990s, but it really didnât get going until broadband became commonplace in the early 2000s.
In fact, I remember an early fashion brand launching an interactive online store in around 1999 and promptly going out of business because the experience was too unresponsive for most people, who were still on dial-up modem Internet.
Web 2.0 was driven by changes in web technology that supported applications that could execute in the browser (Javascript) and the ability to asynchronously communicate between the browser and the back-end server (AJAX).
From the early to mid 2000s, we started to see more interactive capabilities, things like blogging, and the launch of various social networking sites, sites like Youtube, etc.
Online forums, are early examples of social networking and the âWeb 2.0â movement, although the technology has evolved significantly from the early PHPBB systems.
âWeb 3.0â is, about de-centralisation and (according to Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the web), the semantic web, although I donât see this catching on much.
Itâs also linked with blockchain but, IMO, blockchain is still something that (outside of âcryptocurrencyâ commodities) is largely a solution in search of real problems to solve.
Discord is really a real-time chat platform, similar to WhatsApp, Telegram, Signal, etc.
Chat platforms tend to be highly unstructured, often pretty chaotic, and very âin the momentâ, which means they arenât great for posting structured information or having focused conversations, as anything posted on them typically has a short shelf life (often an hour or less) and conversation topics tend to be interleaved and difficult to follow.
Personally, I donât think chat platforms are a good way to build a community or to have meaningful, long-term discussions.
Cheers,
Keith