History of the World Wide Web
Encyclopedia
Information
Information in its most restricted technical sense is a message or collection of messages that consists of an ordered sequence of symbols, or it is the meaning that can be interpreted from such a message or collection of messages. Information can be recorded or transmitted. It can be recorded as...
medium which users can read and write via computer
Computer
A computer is a programmable machine designed to sequentially and automatically carry out a sequence of arithmetic or logical operations. The particular sequence of operations can be changed readily, allowing the computer to solve more than one kind of problem...
s connected to the Internet
Internet
The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...
. The term is often mistakenly used as a synonym for the Internet itself, but the Web is a service that operates over the Internet, as e-mail
E-mail
Electronic mail, commonly known as email or e-mail, is a method of exchanging digital messages from an author to one or more recipients. Modern email operates across the Internet or other computer networks. Some early email systems required that the author and the recipient both be online at the...
does. The history of the Internet
History of the Internet
The history of the Internet starts in the 1950s and 1960s with the development of computers. This began with point-to-point communication between mainframe computers and terminals, expanded to point-to-point connections between computers and then early research into packet switching...
dates back significantly further than that of the World Wide Web
World Wide Web
The World Wide Web is a system of interlinked hypertext documents accessed via the Internet...
.
The hypertext
Hypertext
Hypertext is text displayed on a computer or other electronic device with references to other text that the reader can immediately access, usually by a mouse click or keypress sequence. Apart from running text, hypertext may contain tables, images and other presentational devices. Hypertext is the...
portion of the Web in particular has an intricate intellectual history; notable influences and precursors include Vannevar Bush
Vannevar Bush
Vannevar Bush was an American engineer and science administrator known for his work on analog computing, his political role in the development of the atomic bomb as a primary organizer of the Manhattan Project, the founding of Raytheon, and the idea of the memex, an adjustable microfilm viewer...
's Memex
Memex
The memex is the name given by Vannevar Bush to the hypothetical proto-hypertext system he described in his 1945 The Atlantic Monthly article As We May Think...
, IBM's Generalized Markup Language, and Ted Nelson
Ted Nelson
Theodor Holm Nelson is an American sociologist, philosopher, and pioneer of information technology. He coined the terms "hypertext" and "hypermedia" in 1963 and published it in 1965...
's Project Xanadu
Project Xanadu
Project Xanadu was the first hypertext project, founded in 1960 by Ted Nelson. Administrators of Project Xanadu have declared it an improvement over the World Wide Web, with mission statement: "Today's popular software simulates paper...
.
The concept of a home-based global information system goes at least as far back as "A Logic Named Joe
A Logic Named Joe
"A Logic Named Joe" is a science fiction short story by Murray Leinster that was first published in the March 1946 issue of Astounding Science Fiction. The story actually appeared under Leinster's real name, Will F. Jenkins, since that issue of Astounding also included a story under the Leinster...
", a 1946 short story by Murray Leinster
Murray Leinster
Murray Leinster was a nom de plume of William Fitzgerald Jenkins, an award-winning American writer of science fiction and alternate history...
, in which computer terminals, called "logics," were in every home. Although the computer system in the story is centralized, the story captures some of the feeling of the ubiquitous information explosion driven by the Web.
1979–1991: Development of the World Wide Web
Tim Berners-Lee
Sir Timothy John "Tim" Berners-Lee, , also known as "TimBL", is a British computer scientist, MIT professor and the inventor of the World Wide Web...
, an independent contractor at the European Organization for Nuclear Research
CERN
The European Organization for Nuclear Research , known as CERN , is an international organization whose purpose is to operate the world's largest particle physics laboratory, which is situated in the northwest suburbs of Geneva on the Franco–Swiss border...
(CERN), Switzerland
Switzerland
Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....
, built ENQUIRE
ENQUIRE
ENQUIRE was an early software project written in 1980 by Tim Berners-Lee at CERN, which was the predecessor to the World Wide Web in 1989.It was a simple hypertext program that had some of the same ideas as the Web and the Semantic Web but was different in several important ways.According to...
, as a personal database of people and software models, but also as a way to play with hypertext
Hypertext
Hypertext is text displayed on a computer or other electronic device with references to other text that the reader can immediately access, usually by a mouse click or keypress sequence. Apart from running text, hypertext may contain tables, images and other presentational devices. Hypertext is the...
; each new page of information in ENQUIRE had to be linked to an existing page.
Robert Cailliau
Robert Cailliau , born 26 January 1947, is a Belgian informatics engineer and computer scientist who, together with Sir Tim Berners-Lee, developed the World Wide Web.-Biography:...
, who rewrote the proposal (published on November 12, 1990) and sought resources within CERN. Berners-Lee and Cailliau pitched their ideas to the European Conference on Hypertext Technology in September 1990, but found no vendors who could appreciate their vision of marrying hypertext with the Internet.
By Christmas 1990, Berners-Lee had built all the tools necessary for a working Web: the HyperText Transfer Protocol
Hypertext Transfer Protocol
The Hypertext Transfer Protocol is a networking protocol for distributed, collaborative, hypermedia information systems. HTTP is the foundation of data communication for the World Wide Web....
(HTTP) 0.9, the HyperText Markup Language (HTML), the first Web browser
Web browser
A web browser is a software application for retrieving, presenting, and traversing information resources on the World Wide Web. An information resource is identified by a Uniform Resource Identifier and may be a web page, image, video, or other piece of content...
(named WorldWideWeb
WorldWideWeb
WorldWideWeb, later renamed to Nexus to avoid confusion between the software and the World Wide Web, was the first web browser and editor. When it was written, WorldWideWeb was the only way to view the Web....
, which was also a Web editor
HTML editor
An HTML editor is a software application for creating web pages. Although the HTML markup of a web page can be written with any text editor, specialized HTML editors can offer convenience and added functionality. For example, many HTML editors work not only with HTML, but also with related...
), the first HTTP server software (later known as CERN httpd
CERN httpd
CERN httpd was a web server daemon originally developed at CERN from 1990 onwards by Tim Berners-Lee, Ari Luotonen and Henrik Frystyk Nielsen...
), the first web server
Web server
Web server can refer to either the hardware or the software that helps to deliver content that can be accessed through the Internet....
(http://info.cern.ch), and the first Web pages that described the project itself. The browser could access Usenet
Usenet
Usenet is a worldwide distributed Internet discussion system. It developed from the general purpose UUCP architecture of the same name.Duke University graduate students Tom Truscott and Jim Ellis conceived the idea in 1979 and it was established in 1980...
newsgroups and FTP files as well. However, it could run only on the NeXT; Nicola Pellow
Nicola Pellow
Nicola Pellow was a member of the WWW Project at CERN, working with Tim Berners-Lee. She joined the project in November 1990, while an undergraduate maths student at Leicester Polytechnic ....
therefore created a simple text browser that could run on almost any computer called the Line Mode Browser. To encourage use within CERN, Bernd Pollermann put the CERN telephone directory on the web — previously users had to log onto the mainframe in order to look up phone numbers.
Tim Berners-Lee's account of the exact locations at CERN where the Web was invented, is here.
On August 6, 1991, Berners-Lee posted a short summary of the World Wide Web project on the alt.hypertext newsgroup. This date also marked the debut of the Web as a publicly available service on the Internet.
The WorldWideWeb (WWW) project aims to allow all links to be made to any information anywhere. [...] The WWW project was started to allow high energy physicists to share data, news, and documentation. We are very interested in spreading the web to other areas, and having gateway servers for other data. Collaborators welcome!" —from Tim Berners-Lee's first message
Paul Kunz
Paul Kunz
Particle physicist and software developer Paul Kunz initiated the deployment of the first web server outside of Europe. After a meeting in September with Tim Berners-Lee of CERN, he returned to the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center with word of the World Wide Web...
from the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center
Stanford Linear Accelerator Center
The SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, originally named Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, is a United States Department of Energy National Laboratory operated by Stanford University under the programmatic direction of the U.S...
visited CERN in September 1991, and was captivated by the Web. He brought the NeXT software back to SLAC, where librarian Louise Addis adapted it for the VM/CMS operating system on the IBM mainframe
IBM mainframe
IBM mainframes are large computer systems produced by IBM from 1952 to the present. During the 1960s and 1970s, the term mainframe computer was almost synonymous with IBM products due to their marketshare...
as a way to display SLAC’s catalog of online documents; this was the first web server outside of Europe and the first in North America.
An early CERN
CERN
The European Organization for Nuclear Research , known as CERN , is an international organization whose purpose is to operate the world's largest particle physics laboratory, which is situated in the northwest suburbs of Geneva on the Franco–Swiss border...
-related contribution to the Web was the parody band Les Horribles Cernettes
Les Horribles Cernettes
Les Horribles Cernettes is an all-female parody pop group, self-labelled "the one and only High Energy Rock Band", founded by employees of CERN which performs at CERN and other HEP related events. Their musical style is often described as doo-wop...
, whose promotional image is believed to be among the Web's first five pictures.
1992–1995: Growth of the WWW
In keeping with its birth at CERNCERN
The European Organization for Nuclear Research , known as CERN , is an international organization whose purpose is to operate the world's largest particle physics laboratory, which is situated in the northwest suburbs of Geneva on the Franco–Swiss border...
, early adopters of the World Wide Web were primarily university-based scientific departments or physics laboratories such as Fermilab
Fermilab
Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory , located just outside Batavia, Illinois, near Chicago, is a US Department of Energy national laboratory specializing in high-energy particle physics...
and SLAC.
Early websites intermingled links for both the HTTP web protocol and the then-popular Gopher protocol, which provided access to content through hypertext
Hypertext
Hypertext is text displayed on a computer or other electronic device with references to other text that the reader can immediately access, usually by a mouse click or keypress sequence. Apart from running text, hypertext may contain tables, images and other presentational devices. Hypertext is the...
menus presented as a file system
File system
A file system is a means to organize data expected to be retained after a program terminates by providing procedures to store, retrieve and update data, as well as manage the available space on the device which contain it. A file system organizes data in an efficient manner and is tuned to the...
rather than through HTML
HTML
HyperText Markup Language is the predominant markup language for web pages. HTML elements are the basic building-blocks of webpages....
files. Early Web users would navigate either by bookmarking popular directory pages, such as Berners-Lee's first site at
National Center for Supercomputing Applications
The National Center for Supercomputing Applications is an American state-federal partnership to develop and deploy national-scale cyberinfrastructure that advances science and engineering. NCSA operates as a unit of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign but it provides high-performance...
"What's New" page. Some sites were also indexed by WAIS
Wide area information server
Wide Area Information Servers or WAIS is a client–server text searching system that uses the ANSI Standard Z39.50 Information Retrieval Service Definition and Protocol Specifications for Library Applications" to search index databases on remote computers...
, enabling users to submit full-text searches similar to the capability later provided by search engine
Search engine
A search engine is an information retrieval system designed to help find information stored on a computer system. The search results are usually presented in a list and are commonly called hits. Search engines help to minimize the time required to find information and the amount of information...
s.
There was still no graphical browser available for computers besides the NeXT. This gap was filled in April 1992 with the release of Erwise
Erwise
Erwise was a pioneering web browser, and the first commonly available with a graphical user interface.Released in April 1992, the browser was written for Unix computers running X and used the W3 common access library...
, an application developed at Helsinki University of Technology
Helsinki University of Technology
Aalto University School of Science and Technology , was the temporary name for Helsinki University of Technology during the process of forming the Aalto University...
, and in May by ViolaWWW
ViolaWWW
ViolaWWW, first developed in the early 1990s, for Unix and the X Windowing System, was the first popular web browser which, until Mosaic, was the most frequently used web browser for access to the World Wide Web...
, created by Pei-Yuan Wei
Pei-Yuan Wei
Pei-Yuan Wei is the creator of ViolaWWW, the first popular graphical web browser.Pei-Yuan Wei was born in Taiwan. He graduated from Berkeley High School in 1986 and received his higher education at the University of California, Berkeley.-Controversy:...
, which included advanced features such as embedded graphics, scripting, and animation. ViolaWWW was originally an application for HyperCard
HyperCard
HyperCard is an application program created by Bill Atkinson for Apple Computer, Inc. that was among the first successful hypermedia systems before the World Wide Web. It combines database capabilities with a graphical, flexible, user-modifiable interface. HyperCard also features HyperTalk, written...
. Both programs ran on the X Window System
X Window System
The X window system is a computer software system and network protocol that provides a basis for graphical user interfaces and rich input device capability for networked computers...
for Unix
Unix
Unix is a multitasking, multi-user computer operating system originally developed in 1969 by a group of AT&T employees at Bell Labs, including Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, Brian Kernighan, Douglas McIlroy, and Joe Ossanna...
.
Students at the University of Kansas
University of Kansas
The University of Kansas is a public research university and the largest university in the state of Kansas. KU campuses are located in Lawrence, Wichita, Overland Park, and Kansas City, Kansas with the main campus being located in Lawrence on Mount Oread, the highest point in Lawrence. The...
adapted an existing text-only hypertext browser, Lynx
Lynx (web browser)
Lynx is a text-based web browser for use on cursor-addressable character cell terminals and is very configurable.-Usage:Browsing in Lynx consists of highlighting the chosen link using cursor keys, or having all links on a page numbered and entering the chosen link's number. Current versions support...
, to access the web. Lynx was available on Unix and DOS, and some web designers, unimpressed with glossy graphical websites, held that a website not accessible through Lynx wasn’t worth visiting.
Early browsers
The turning point for the World Wide Web was the introductionof the Mosaic
Mosaic (web browser)
Mosaic is the web browser credited with popularizing the World Wide Web. It was also a client for earlier protocols such as FTP, NNTP, and gopher. Its clean, easily understood user interface, reliability, Windows port and simple installation all contributed to making it the application that opened...
web browser
in 1993, a graphical browser developed by a team at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications
National Center for Supercomputing Applications
The National Center for Supercomputing Applications is an American state-federal partnership to develop and deploy national-scale cyberinfrastructure that advances science and engineering. NCSA operates as a unit of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign but it provides high-performance...
(NCSA) at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
The University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign is a large public research-intensive university in the state of Illinois, United States. It is the flagship campus of the University of Illinois system...
(UIUC), led by Marc Andreessen
Marc Andreessen
Marc Andreessen is an American entrepreneur, investor, software engineer, and multi-millionaire best known as co-author of Mosaic, the first widely-used web browser, and co-founder of Netscape Communications Corporation. He founded and later sold the software company Opsware to Hewlett-Packard...
. Funding for Mosaic came from the High-Performance Computing and Communications Initiative, a funding program initiated by then-Senator Al Gore
Al Gore and information technology
Al Gore served as the Vice President of the United States from 1993–2001. He is the co-winner of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize. In the 1990s he promoted legislation that funded an expansion of and greater public access to the internet....
's High Performance Computing and Communication Act of 1991
High Performance Computing and Communication Act of 1991
The High Performance Computing and Communication Act of 1991 is an Act of Congress promulgated in the 102nd United States Congress as on 1991-12-09...
also known as the Gore Bill.
The origins of Mosaic had begun in 1992. In November 1992, the NCSA at the University of Illinois (UIUC) established a website. In December 1992, Andreessen and Eric Bina
Eric Bina
Eric J. Bina is the co-creator of Mosaic and the co-founder of Netscape. In 1993, Bina along with Marc Andreessen authored the first version of Mosaic while working as a programmer at National Center for Supercomputing Applications at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.Bina attended...
, students attending UIUC and working at the NCSA, began work on Mosaic
Mosaic (web browser)
Mosaic is the web browser credited with popularizing the World Wide Web. It was also a client for earlier protocols such as FTP, NNTP, and gopher. Its clean, easily understood user interface, reliability, Windows port and simple installation all contributed to making it the application that opened...
. They released an X Window browser in February 1993. It gained popularity due to its strong support of integrated multimedia
Multimedia
Multimedia is media and content that uses a combination of different content forms. The term can be used as a noun or as an adjective describing a medium as having multiple content forms. The term is used in contrast to media which use only rudimentary computer display such as text-only, or...
, and the authors’ rapid response to user bug reports and recommendations for new features.
The first Microsoft Windows
Microsoft Windows
Microsoft Windows is a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft.Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal...
browser was Cello
Cello (web browser)
Cello was an early shareware 16-bit multipurpose web browser for Windows 3.1 developed by Thomas R. Bruce of the Legal Information Institute at Cornell Law School. It was the first web browser for Microsoft Windows, and thus was among the first free winsock browsers...
, written by Thomas R. Bruce for the Legal Information Institute at Cornell Law School
Cornell Law School
Cornell Law School, located in Ithaca, New York, is a graduate school of Cornell University and one of the five Ivy League law schools. The school confers three law degrees...
to provide legal information, since more lawyers had more access to Windows than to Unix. Cello was released in June 1993.
After graduation from UIUC, Andreessen and James H. Clark
James H. Clark
James H. Clark is an American entrepreneur and computer scientist. He founded several notable Silicon Valley technology companies, including Silicon Graphics, Inc., Netscape Communications Corporation, myCFO and Healtheon...
, former CEO of Silicon Graphics
Silicon Graphics
Silicon Graphics, Inc. was a manufacturer of high-performance computing solutions, including computer hardware and software, founded in 1981 by Jim Clark...
, met and formed Mosaic Communications Corporation to develop the Mosaic browser commercially. The company changed its name to Netscape
Netscape
Netscape Communications is a US computer services company, best known for Netscape Navigator, its web browser. When it was an independent company, its headquarters were in Mountain View, California...
in April 1994, and the browser was developed further as Netscape Navigator
Netscape Navigator
Netscape Navigator was a proprietary web browser that was popular in the 1990s. It was the flagship product of the Netscape Communications Corporation and the dominant web browser in terms of usage share, although by 2002 its usage had almost disappeared...
.
Web organization
In May 1994 the first International WWW ConferenceWorld Wide Web Conference 1
The first World Wide Web Conference which was organized by Robert Cailliau was held at Geneva, Switzerland from May 25 to May 27 in 1994 and was hosted by CERN....
, organized by Robert Cailliau, was held at CERN; the conference has been held every year since. In April 1993 CERN had agreed that anyone could use the Web protocol and code royalty-free; this was in part a reaction to the perturbation caused by the University of Minnesota
University of Minnesota
The University of Minnesota, Twin Cities is a public research university located in Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota, United States. It is the oldest and largest part of the University of Minnesota system and has the fourth-largest main campus student body in the United States, with 52,557...
announcing that it would begin charging license fees for its implementation of the Gopher protocol.
In September 1994, Berners-Lee founded the World Wide Web Consortium
World Wide Web Consortium
The World Wide Web Consortium is the main international standards organization for the World Wide Web .Founded and headed by Tim Berners-Lee, the consortium is made up of member organizations which maintain full-time staff for the purpose of working together in the development of standards for the...
(W3C) at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology is a private research university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts. MIT has five schools and one college, containing a total of 32 academic departments, with a strong emphasis on scientific and technological education and research.Founded in 1861 in...
with support from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency
Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is an agency of the United States Department of Defense responsible for the development of new technology for use by the military...
(DARPA) and the European Commission
European Commission
The European Commission is the executive body of the European Union. The body is responsible for proposing legislation, implementing decisions, upholding the Union's treaties and the general day-to-day running of the Union....
. It comprised various companies that were willing to create standards and recommendations to improve the quality of the Web. Berners-Lee made the Web available freely, with no patent and no royalties due. The W3C decided that their standards must be based on royalty-free technology, so they can be easily adopted by anyone.
By the end of 1994, while the total number of websites was still minute compared to present standards, quite a number of notable websites were already active, many of whom are the precursors or inspiring examples of today's most popular services.
1996–1998: Commercialization of the WWW
By 1996 it became obvious to most publicly traded companies that a public Web presence was no longer optional. Though at first people saw mainly the possibilities of free publishing and instant worldwide information, increasing familiarity with two-way communication over the "Web" led to the possibility of direct Web-based commerce (e-commerce) and instantaneous group communications worldwide.More dotcoms
Dot-com company
A dot-com company, or simply a dot-com , is a company that does most of its business on the Internet, usually through a website that uses the popular top-level domain, ".com" .While the term can refer to present-day companies, it is also used specifically to refer to companies with...
, displaying products on hypertext webpages, were added into the Web.
1999–2001: "Dot-com" boom and bust
Low interest rates in 1998–99 facilitated an increase in start-up companies. Although a number of these new entrepreneurs had realistic plans and administrative ability, most of them lacked these characteristics but were able to sell their ideas to investors because of the novelty of the dot-comDot-com company
A dot-com company, or simply a dot-com , is a company that does most of its business on the Internet, usually through a website that uses the popular top-level domain, ".com" .While the term can refer to present-day companies, it is also used specifically to refer to companies with...
concept.
Historically, the dot-com boom can be seen as similar to a number of other technology-inspired booms of the past including railroads
Railway Mania
The Railway Mania was an instance of speculative frenzy in Britain in the 1840s. It followed a common pattern: as the price of railway shares increased, more and more money was poured in by speculators, until the inevitable collapse...
in the 1840s, automobiles in the early 20th century, radio in the 1920s, television in the 1940s, transistor electronics in the 1950s, computer time-sharing in the 1960s, and home computers and biotechnology
Biotechnology
Biotechnology is a field of applied biology that involves the use of living organisms and bioprocesses in engineering, technology, medicine and other fields requiring bioproducts. Biotechnology also utilizes these products for manufacturing purpose...
in the early 1980s.
In 2001 the bubble burst, and many dot-com startups went out of business after burning through their venture capital
Venture capital
Venture capital is financial capital provided to early-stage, high-potential, high risk, growth startup companies. The venture capital fund makes money by owning equity in the companies it invests in, which usually have a novel technology or business model in high technology industries, such as...
and failing to become profitable
Profit (accounting)
In accounting, profit can be considered to be the difference between the purchase price and the costs of bringing to market whatever it is that is accounted as an enterprise in terms of the component costs of delivered goods and/or services and any operating or other expenses.-Definition:There are...
. Many others, however, did survive and thrive in the early 21st century. Many companies which began as online retailers blossomed and became highly profitable. More conventional retailers found online merchandising to be a profitable additional source of revenue. While some online entertainment and news outlets failed when their seed capital ran out, others persisted and eventually became economically self-sufficient. Traditional media outlets (newspaper publishers, broadcasters and cablecasters in particular) also found the Web to be a useful and profitable additional channel for content distribution, and an additional vehicle to generate advertising revenue. The sites that survived and eventually prospered after the bubble burst had two things in common; a sound business plan, and a niche in the marketplace that was, if not unique, particularly well-defined and well-served.
2002–present: The Web becomes ubiquitous
In the aftermath of the dot-com bubble, telecommunications companies had a great deal of overcapacity as many Internet business clients went bust. That, plus ongoing investment in local cell infrastructure kept connectivity charges low, and helping to make high-speed Internet connectivity more affordable. During this time, a handful of companies found success developing business models that helped make the World Wide Web a more compelling experience. These include airline booking sites, GoogleGoogle
Google Inc. is an American multinational public corporation invested in Internet search, cloud computing, and advertising technologies. Google hosts and develops a number of Internet-based services and products, and generates profit primarily from advertising through its AdWords program...
's search engine
Search engine
A search engine is an information retrieval system designed to help find information stored on a computer system. The search results are usually presented in a list and are commonly called hits. Search engines help to minimize the time required to find information and the amount of information...
and its profitable approach to simplified, keyword-based advertising, as well as ebay
EBay
eBay Inc. is an American internet consumer-to-consumer corporation that manages eBay.com, an online auction and shopping website in which people and businesses buy and sell a broad variety of goods and services worldwide...
's do-it-yourself auction site and Amazon.com
Amazon.com
Amazon.com, Inc. is a multinational electronic commerce company headquartered in Seattle, Washington, United States. It is the world's largest online retailer. Amazon has separate websites for the following countries: United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Japan, and...
's online department store.
This new era also begot social networking websites
Social network service
A social networking service is an online service, platform, or site that focuses on building and reflecting of social networks or social relations among people, who, for example, share interests and/or activities. A social network service consists of a representation of each user , his/her social...
, such as MySpace
MySpace
Myspace is a social networking service owned by Specific Media LLC and pop star Justin Timberlake. Myspace launched in August 2003 and is headquartered in Beverly Hills, California. In August 2011, Myspace had 33.1 million unique U.S. visitors....
and Facebook
Facebook
Facebook is a social networking service and website launched in February 2004, operated and privately owned by Facebook, Inc. , Facebook has more than 800 million active users. Users must register before using the site, after which they may create a personal profile, add other users as...
, which, though unpopular at first, very rapidly gained acceptance in becoming a major part of youth culture.
Web 2.0
Beginning in 2002, new ideas for sharing and exchanging content ad hoc, such as Weblogs and RSSRSS
-Mathematics:* Root-sum-square, the square root of the sum of the squares of the elements of a data set* Residual sum of squares in statistics-Technology:* RSS , "Really Simple Syndication" or "Rich Site Summary", a family of web feed formats...
, rapidly gained acceptance on the Web. This new model for information exchange, primarily featuring DIY user-edited and generated websites, was coined Web 2.0
Web 2.0
The term Web 2.0 is associated with web applications that facilitate participatory information sharing, interoperability, user-centered design, and collaboration on the World Wide Web...
.
The Web 2.0 boom saw many new service-oriented startups catering to a new, democratized Web. Some believe it will be followed by the full realization of a Semantic Web
Semantic Web
The Semantic Web is a collaborative movement led by the World Wide Web Consortium that promotes common formats for data on the World Wide Web. By encouraging the inclusion of semantic content in web pages, the Semantic Web aims at converting the current web of unstructured documents into a "web of...
.
Tim Berners-Lee originally expressed the vision of the Semantic Web as follows:
Predictably, as the World Wide Web became easier to query, attained a higher degree of usability, and shed its esoteric reputation, it gained a sense of organization and unsophistication which opened the floodgates and ushered in a rapid period of popularization. New sites such as Wikipedia
Wikipedia
Wikipedia is a free, web-based, collaborative, multilingual encyclopedia project supported by the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation. Its 20 million articles have been written collaboratively by volunteers around the world. Almost all of its articles can be edited by anyone with access to the site,...
and its sister projects proved revolutionary in executing the User edited content
Wiki
A wiki is a website that allows the creation and editing of any number of interlinked web pages via a web browser using a simplified markup language or a WYSIWYG text editor. Wikis are typically powered by wiki software and are often used collaboratively by multiple users. Examples include...
concept. In 2005, 3 ex-PayPal
PayPal
PayPal is an American-based global e-commerce business allowing payments and money transfers to be made through the Internet. Online money transfers serve as electronic alternatives to paying with traditional paper methods, such as checks and money orders....
employees formed a video viewing website called YouTube
YouTube
YouTube is a video-sharing website, created by three former PayPal employees in February 2005, on which users can upload, view and share videos....
. Only a year later, YouTube was proven the most quickly popularized website in history, and even started a new concept of user-submitted content in major events, as in the CNN-YouTube Presidential Debates
CNN-YouTube presidential debates
The CNN-YouTube presidential debates were a series of televised debates in which United States presidential hopefuls field questions submitted through the social networking site YouTube. The Democratic Party installment took place in Charleston, South Carolina and aired on July 23, 2007. The...
.
The popularity of YouTube and similar services, combined with the increasing availability and affordability of high-speed connections has made video content far more common on all kinds of websites. Many video-content hosting and creation sites provide an easy means for their videos to be embedded on third party websites without payment or permission.
This combination of more user-created or edited content, and easy means of sharing content, such as via RSS widgets and video embedding, has led to many sites with a typical "Web 2.0" feel. They have articles with embedded video, user-submitted comments below the article, and RSS boxes to the side, listing some of the latest articles from other sites.
Continued extension of the World Wide Web has focused on connecting devices to the Internet, coined Intelligent Device Management
Intelligent Device Management
Intelligent device management is a term used for enterprise software applications that allow equipment manufacturers to monitor and manage remote equipment, systems and products via the Internet...
. As Internet connectivity becomes ubiquitous, manufacturers have started to leverage the expanded computing power of their devices to enhance their usability and capability. Through Internet connectivity, manufacturers are now able to interact with the devices they have sold and shipped to their customers, and customers are able to interact with the manufacturer (and other providers) to access new content.
Lending credence to the idea of the ubiquity of the web, Web 2.0 has found a place in the global English lexicon. On June 10, 2009 the Global Language Monitor
Global Language Monitor
The Global Language Monitor is an Austin, Texas-based company that collectively documents, analyzes and tracks trends in language usage worldwide, with a particular emphasis upon the English language...
declared it to be the one-millionth English word.
See also
- HypermediaHypermediaHypermedia is a computer-based information retrieval system that enables a user to gain or provide access to texts, audio and video recordings, photographs and computer graphics related to a particular subject.Hypermedia is a term created by Ted Nelson....
- Linked DataLinked DataIn computing, linked data describes a method of publishing structured data so that it can be interlinked and become more useful. It builds upon standard Web technologies such as HTTP and URIs, but rather than using them to serve web pages for human readers, it extends them to share information in a...
- Semantic WebSemantic WebThe Semantic Web is a collaborative movement led by the World Wide Web Consortium that promotes common formats for data on the World Wide Web. By encouraging the inclusion of semantic content in web pages, the Semantic Web aims at converting the current web of unstructured documents into a "web of...
- Tim Berners-LeeTim Berners-LeeSir Timothy John "Tim" Berners-Lee, , also known as "TimBL", is a British computer scientist, MIT professor and the inventor of the World Wide Web...
- Computer Lib / Dream Machines