Semantic technologies turn today’s search engines into tomorrow’s answer engines. The semantic web is based on the contextual description of digital documents with standardised vocabularies that have machine-readable semantics. The access to semantic websites allows intelligent search agents to find specific information on the Internet very accurately, to filter it and combine it, to relieve the user of time-consuming research work. If it is possible to get users, whether professional or non-professional, to participate actively in creating semantic based web pages and web services in a mass movement, as was successful for Web 2.0, then Web 3.0 will be pushed ahead, as is currently happening in THESEUS, the milestone project that is part of the German Government’s high technology strategy. The equation Web 3.0 = Semantic Web + Web 2.0 applies.

The Internet of Services will allow semantic web services to be composed automatically with the help of artificial intelligence. These web services will allow for flexible automation of complex applications and completely new types of business models. Finally, by embedding connected radio sensors in day-to-day objects (from cars through to pizzas), it will enable the Internet of Things to create ambient intelligence with which business processes can be controlled, with fine-grained adaptivity, in real-time: A digital product memory with mobile web access will be created.