30 today: Happy birthday to the World Wide Web
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On 12 March 1989, Tim Berners-Lee wrote his proposal for a new information management system connecting documents held across multiple computers at CERN, where he worked as a contractor.
It began by asking how future scientists would keep track of their increasingly large projects. “This proposal provides an answer to such questions,” he wrote.
The proposal described what, in just a couple years’ time, would transform into the World Wide Web: a connected system for sharing information that would revolutionize how the entire planet communicated.
At the time, connected networks of computers had been up, running, and growing for a couple of decades. People had sent emails, shared files, ran message boards, and even created the first emoticons.
But it wasn’t until the World Wide Web came along that the internet at large really began to take off. Web browsers, webpages, and hyperlinks made information easy to find and move between, and because the core code was open sourced, anyone could create a browser or website of their own.
"Vague but exciting," was the response of his supervisor, scrawled on the cover of the document.
It turned out to be a laconic greeting for an invention which would transform the world's economy - and its society too.
Whether or not those changes have been for better or worse isn't really clear, but the scale of the changes have been remarkable.
The web has become a public square, a library, a doctor’s office, a shop, a school, a design studio, an office, a cinema, a bank, and so much more. Of course with every new feature, every new website, the divide between those who are online and those who are not increases, making it all the more imperative to make the web available for everyone.
https://news.sky.com/story/30-today-happy-birthday-to-the-world-wide-web-11662843
https://www.theverge.com/2019/3/12/18259700/world-wide-wide-turns-30-www-anniversary-favorite-sites
https://www.wired.com/story/tim-berners-lee-world-wide-web-anniversary/
On 12 March 1989, Tim Berners-Lee wrote his proposal for a new information management system connecting documents held across multiple computers at CERN, where he worked as a contractor.
It began by asking how future scientists would keep track of their increasingly large projects. “This proposal provides an answer to such questions,” he wrote.
The proposal described what, in just a couple years’ time, would transform into the World Wide Web: a connected system for sharing information that would revolutionize how the entire planet communicated.
At the time, connected networks of computers had been up, running, and growing for a couple of decades. People had sent emails, shared files, ran message boards, and even created the first emoticons.
But it wasn’t until the World Wide Web came along that the internet at large really began to take off. Web browsers, webpages, and hyperlinks made information easy to find and move between, and because the core code was open sourced, anyone could create a browser or website of their own.
"Vague but exciting," was the response of his supervisor, scrawled on the cover of the document.
It turned out to be a laconic greeting for an invention which would transform the world's economy - and its society too.
Whether or not those changes have been for better or worse isn't really clear, but the scale of the changes have been remarkable.
The web has become a public square, a library, a doctor’s office, a shop, a school, a design studio, an office, a cinema, a bank, and so much more. Of course with every new feature, every new website, the divide between those who are online and those who are not increases, making it all the more imperative to make the web available for everyone.
https://news.sky.com/story/30-today-happy-birthday-to-the-world-wide-web-11662843
https://www.theverge.com/2019/3/12/18259700/world-wide-wide-turns-30-www-anniversary-favorite-sites
https://www.wired.com/story/tim-berners-lee-world-wide-web-anniversary/
