Happy Techniversary, World Wide Web
No one can deny the massive impact of the World Wide Web (WWW). If you were born in the 1990s, you have likely never known a world without it. But it has forever changed the way we learn, communicate, conduct business and even create political change.
Credit: Eyewire/Getty Images; one of the names that has been given the Internet over the years is the Internet Superhighway.
Before we take a look at its humble beginnings, it is important to note that the World Wide Web is not the same thing as the Internet. The Internet (with its origins going back as early as 1958 within the U.S. Department of Defense) includes the infrastructure that connects networks, including hardware (cables, servers, computers) and software. Apps, IMs, file transfers, and emails all require the Internet. The World Wide Web, on the other hand, is a method of sharing information on the internet via HyperText Markup Language.
Identifying a Need
Like most great beginnings, the World Wide Web began as a proposed solution to a need. In the early 1980s, scientists at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (with the translated acronym CERN) had been sharing their information with one another via email and file exchanges. Because there were 10,000 of them and they often had incompatible hardware and software, they needed a way to better share their data with one another. An independent contractor named Tim Berners-Lee created ENQUIRE, an internal personal database that unified the existing systems.
Twenty-five years ago, on March 12, 1989, Berners-Lee wrote a proposal to expand the system to a broader audience outside of CERN. In interviews he has said that his boss initially called the idea, “vague but exciting,” and allowed him to work quietly on the idea when he wasn’t doing the work he had been assigned. The fundamental basis of the new system was HyperText Markup Language (HTML), a language used to transmit data.
Berners-Lee spent the next few years collaborating with a Belgian computer scientist named Robert Calliau,. They unsuccessfully pitched their idea of linked information systems to potential vendors at technology conferences. On August 6, 1991, they created and then published the very first Web page, where visitors could learn more about the World Wide Web.
An Important Tool
By 1993, the Web could display images in addition to text. Programs called browsers and search engines came along, making it easier for people to locate information. The World Wide Web transitioned from a place for academics and scientist to store and share information to a resource for the masses. In 1994, just 14 percent of Americans were using the Internet. Today that number is 87 percent. The number of Web sites that existed in 1993 was 130. Today it is over 600 million.
Now that it has become an essential communication method, the most recent concern is keeping it free of government control. It was conceived as a “royalty free” service, meaning no one in particular owns it. In recent years social media has been credited for political upheaval. Making sure that it remains an open and neutral system where people have the freedom of speech and privacy is of great importance to many people, especially in light of the allegations of NSA contractor, Edward Snowden.