Text mining, predictive analytics, and ill-conceived buzzwords

The New York Times sometimes writes very interesting articles on technical trends, that succinctly describe emerging technologies and their potential. Today's piece by John Markoff, Entrepreneurs See a Web Guided by Common Sense, is no exception. And, it's a topic that touches an issue that I am very involved with right now: Text mining (aka computer-assisted text analysis, text-based computer content analysis ...).

But what I really don't like to see in technology articles written by the NYT (or other publications) are buzzwords. They are often poorly defined. They obscure the underlying technogies. They can lead to misunderstandings. And they are usually created to serve some business interest, or are eventually hijacked by business interests.

This is exactly the type of situation Markoff is setting up by introducing "Web 3.0" into the discussion. Never mind text mining, predictive analytics, or the Semantic Web (hear a Computerworld podcast I narrated on this subject earlier this year). "Web 3.0" sounds a heck of a lot cooler than any of these terms.

And, predictably, the gushing has already started, as evidenced by these blog posts by Mark Evans, Nick Carr, and the rest of the Techmeme gang. The V.C.s will start piling on in short order. And eventually, the buzzword will elicit loathing and disgust, like "Web 2.0" is starting to do.

And then it will be time for "Web 4.0." I already have a bead on what that's going to be about: Applications that take advantage of massively distributed grid architectures, such as specialized media applications that analyze and categorize the massive amounts of images and video content that will be uploaded to the 'Net and computer-generated newscasts that can aggregate text, video, and images for targeted, on-the-fly news programs in 3D.

But "Web 4.0" sounds a lot kewler than "Grid Software", and is much easier to squeeze into a newspaper/magazine/blog headline.

Let the buzz begin ...