Scientometric review of Web 3.0

Abstract

Web 3.0 is a next-generation web architecture that envisions a more decentralised, secure and intelligent Internet. Its implications are vast and could potentially impact various research areas, such as e-commerce, social networking, finance, healthcare and education. It can be seen as a confluence of various technological advancements, including blockchain, artificial intelligence, semantic web and decentralised web technologies, which continue to attract substantial research interest in several dimensions and categories throughout the last few decades. A detailed scientometric analysis was undertaken to obtain concise understanding on development and publication trends of this multi-dimensional field. Corpus of 1154 articles, extracted from Web of Science from 2002 to 2022, were used to identify networks of co-authorship, keywords, subject categories, institutions and countries engaged in publishing on Web 3.0 along with co-citation and cluster analysis. Networks and interactive visualisations created using CiteSpace revealed new research areas where Web 3.0 may be beneficial and potential directions of development for Web 3.0 discipline. We identify Journalism 3.0, Personal Data Stores (PDS), Decentralised File Storages (DFS) and Metaverse as emerging domains Web 3.0 research, seeking overwhelming research attention globally.