Towards the New Generation of Web Knowledge

The web has evolved and is evolving: both its purpose and the nature of its use are changing. Two significant aspects lie in its development from a static information area to a dynamic web of latent or potential knowledge, with a further shift into a corporate environment. This latency leaves us with the question of how can we access this web of knowledge and how can we manage this knowledge better. In brief, can the web provide for the competing stakeholders, who are similarly evolving and increasingly see it as a significant part of their business or market place? This paper adopts an exploratory and reviewing approach to the emerging trends and patterns emanating from this changing use and explores the underpinning technologies and tools that facilitate this use and access. It examines the future and potential of web-based Knowledge Management and reviews the emerging web trends, tools, and enabling technologies that will provide the infrastructure of the next generation web. It investigates some of the requirements for effective web-based knowledge searching, retrieval and sharing and identifies the implications of integrating the two aspects of web-based knowledge management, namely the business-organisational-users' perspective and that of the enabling web technologies. Finally, it seeks to present a view that, whilst looking toward the leading edge of the wave, ensures that the previous waves or approaches are not being overlooked and that nothing significant is missed or has been insufficiently considered or examined.