Rachel_Sandford
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Saturday, August 6, was the 20[SUP]th[/SUP] birthday of the World Wide Web. It's come a long way since it took its first baby step on the same date in 1991 with the help of one of its parents, Sir Tim Berners-Lee.
Originally used to give CERN physicists a platform to share documents, data, and news, Berners-Lee got the ball rolling by posting a summary of the World Wide Web project on the al.hypertext newsgroup. He came up with HTML (hypertext markup language, though the term 'hypertext' was first coined by Ted Nelson in 1965) and HTTP (hypertext transfer protocol), and using the two, built the web by himself with a NeXT computer as a server. Berners-Lee created the first coded browser, which was also the first HTML editor.
Several months later, the first universal line mode browser was launched. Though you had to type in the commands, it could run on any computer and terminal. In 1992, Berners-Lee uploaded the first photo onto the web, and in 1993, the system was officially released to the public, giving the world a tangible example of the World Wide Web.
February of 1993 saw the release of Mosaic, the first real web browser. Developed by Marc Andreesen, who later on produced Netscape, Mosaic was launched by the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA.) Many browsers soon followed, getting us to this point where just about everyone uses Google.
Now, shortly after its 20[SUP]th[/SUP] birthday, we look back at how far the technology has come and how much it has become a part of modern life. In the 1990s and 2000s, the World Wide Web saw the rise of dot-com businesses, and to this day, no self-respecting business is without a website. Now as we enter another decade, we see the rise of Web 2.0, or blogs and social networks, sites in which people can actively participate in the web. In fact, participation is so active that millions are accessing the web through their phones or TVs. A recent poll showed that mobile access to the Internet actually exceeds desktop use. And to think this is just the beginning.
The coming decade is likely to see the web continuing to change the world. It is unlikely that Sir Berners-Lee thought it would come this far back when he first proposed the “WWW project” or back when his colleague, Robert Cailliau, wanted to name it 'Information Mesh.' Little did they know they were creating what is arguably the best invention in the history of the world.
Originally used to give CERN physicists a platform to share documents, data, and news, Berners-Lee got the ball rolling by posting a summary of the World Wide Web project on the al.hypertext newsgroup. He came up with HTML (hypertext markup language, though the term 'hypertext' was first coined by Ted Nelson in 1965) and HTTP (hypertext transfer protocol), and using the two, built the web by himself with a NeXT computer as a server. Berners-Lee created the first coded browser, which was also the first HTML editor.
Several months later, the first universal line mode browser was launched. Though you had to type in the commands, it could run on any computer and terminal. In 1992, Berners-Lee uploaded the first photo onto the web, and in 1993, the system was officially released to the public, giving the world a tangible example of the World Wide Web.
February of 1993 saw the release of Mosaic, the first real web browser. Developed by Marc Andreesen, who later on produced Netscape, Mosaic was launched by the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA.) Many browsers soon followed, getting us to this point where just about everyone uses Google.
Now, shortly after its 20[SUP]th[/SUP] birthday, we look back at how far the technology has come and how much it has become a part of modern life. In the 1990s and 2000s, the World Wide Web saw the rise of dot-com businesses, and to this day, no self-respecting business is without a website. Now as we enter another decade, we see the rise of Web 2.0, or blogs and social networks, sites in which people can actively participate in the web. In fact, participation is so active that millions are accessing the web through their phones or TVs. A recent poll showed that mobile access to the Internet actually exceeds desktop use. And to think this is just the beginning.
The coming decade is likely to see the web continuing to change the world. It is unlikely that Sir Berners-Lee thought it would come this far back when he first proposed the “WWW project” or back when his colleague, Robert Cailliau, wanted to name it 'Information Mesh.' Little did they know they were creating what is arguably the best invention in the history of the world.