History of the World Wide Web

History of the World Wide Web
The World Wide Web ("WWW" or simply the "Web")
is a global information medium which users can read and
write via computers connected to the Internet. The term
is often mistakenly used as a synonym for the Internet
itself, but the Web is a service that operates over the Internet, just as e-mail also does. The history of the Internet dates back significantly further than that of the World
Wide Web.
1
In 1980, Tim Berners-Lee, an independent contractor at the European Organization for Nuclear Research
(CERN), Switzerland, built ENQUIRE, as a personal
database of people and software models, but also as a way
to play with hypertext; each new page of information in
ENQUIRE had to be linked to an existing page.[3]
In 1984 Berners-Lee returned to CERN, and considered
its problems of information management: physicists from
around the world needed to share data, yet they lacked
common machines and any shared presentation software.
Precursors
Shortly after Berners-Lee’s return to CERN, TCP/IP protocols were installed on some key non-Unix machines at
The hypertext portion of the Web in particular has an the institution, turning it into the largest Internet site in
intricate intellectual history; notable influences and pre- Europe within a few years. As a result, CERN’s infrascursors include Vannevar Bush's Memex,[3] IBM’s Gen- tructure was ready for Berners-Lee to create the Web.[6]
eralized Markup Language,[4] and Ted Nelson's Project
Berners-Lee wrote a proposal in March 1989 for “a large
Xanadu.[3]
hypertext database with typed links”.[7] Although the proPaul Otlet's Mundaneum project has also been named as posal attracted little interest, Berners-Lee was encouran early 20th century precursor of the Web.[5]
aged by his boss, Mike Sendall, to begin implementing
[8]
The concept of a global information system connecting his system on a newly acquired NeXT workstation. He
[7]
considered
several
names,
including
Information
Mesh,
homes is prefigured in "A Logic Named Joe", a 1946
The
Information
Mine
or
Mine
of
Information,
but
settled
short story by Murray Leinster, in which computer termi[9]
nals, called “logics,” are present in every home. Although on World Wide Web.
the computer system in the story is centralized, the story
anticipates a ubiquitous information environment similar
to the Web.
2
1980–1991: Invention and Implementation of the Web
Robert Cailliau, Jean-François Abramatic and Tim Berners-Lee
at the 10th anniversary of the WWW Consortium.
Berners-Lee found an enthusiastic supporter in Robert
Cailliau. Berners-Lee and Cailliau pitched Berners-Lee’s
ideas to the European Conference on Hypertext Technology in September 1990, but found no vendors who
could appreciate his vision of marrying hypertext with the
Internet.[10]
The NeXTcube used by Tim Berners-Lee at CERN became the
first Web server.
By Christmas 1990, Berners-Lee had built all the tools
necessary for a working Web: the HyperText Trans1
2
fer Protocol (HTTP) 0.9,[11] the HyperText Markup
Language (HTML), the first Web browser (named
WorldWideWeb, which was also a Web editor), the first
HTTP server software (later known as CERN httpd), the
first web server (http://info.cern.ch), and the first Web
pages that described the project itself. The browser could
access Usenet newsgroups and FTP files as well. However, it could run only on the NeXT; Nicola Pellow therefore created a simple text browser that could run on almost any computer called the Line Mode Browser.[12]
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.[12]
While inventing and working on setting up the Web,
Berners-Lee spent most of his working hours in Building 31 at CERN (46°13′57″N 6°02′42″E / 46.2325°N
6.0450°E), but also at his two homes, one in France, one
in Switzerland.[13] In January 1991 the first Web servers
outside CERN itself were switched on.[14]
3 1992–1995: GROWTH OF THE WEB
across the world; by October 1993 there were over five
hundred.[14]
Early websites intermingled links for both the HTTP web
protocol and the then-popular Gopher protocol, which
provided access to content through hypertext menus presented as a file system rather than through HTML files.
Early Web users would navigate either by bookmarking popular directory pages, such as Berners-Lee’s first
site at http://info.cern.ch/, or by consulting updated lists
such as the NCSA “What’s New” page. Some sites were
also indexed by WAIS, enabling users to submit full-text
searches similar to the capability later provided by search
engines.
By the end of 1994, the total number of websites was still
minute compared to present figures, but quite a number
of notable websites were already active, many of which
are the precursors or inspiring examples of today’s most
popular services.
The first web page may be lost, but Paul Jones of UNC- 3.1
Chapel Hill in North Carolina revealed in May 2013 that
he has a copy of a page sent to him in 1991 by BernersLee which is the oldest known web page. Jones stored the
plain-text page, with hyperlinks, on a floppy disk and on
his NeXT computer.[15] CERN put the oldest known web
page back online in 2014, complete with hyperlinks that
helped users get started and helped them navigate what
was then a very small web.[16][17]
Early browsers
On August 6, 1991,[18] Berners-Lee posted a short summary of the World Wide Web project on the alt.hypertext
newsgroup, inviting collaborators.[19] This date also
marked the debut of the Web as a publicly available service on the Internet, although new users could only access
it after August 23.
Paul Kunz from the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center
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 as a way to display SLAC’s catalog of online documents;[12] this was the
first web server outside of Europe and the first in North
America.[20] The www-talk mailing list was started in the
same month.[14]
The advent of the Mosaic browser in 1993 was a turning point
in utility of the World Wide Web.
Initially, a web browser was available only for the
NeXT operating system. This shortcoming was discussed in January 1992,[14] and alleviated in April 1992
by the release of Erwise, an application developed at
the Helsinki University of Technology, and in May by
ViolaWWW, created by Pei-Yuan Wei, which included
such as embedded graphics, scripting,
An early CERN-related contribution to the Web was advanced features
[12]
ViolaWWW
was originally an applicaand
animation.
the parody band Les Horribles Cernettes, whose promoHyperCard.
Both
programs
ran on the X Window
tion
for
tional image is believed to be among the Web’s first five
[12]
System
for
Unix.
[21]
pictures.
Students at the University of Kansas adapted an existing text-only hypertext browser, Lynx, to access the web.
3 1992–1995: Growth of the Web Lynx was available on Unix and DOS, and some web designers, unimpressed with glossy graphical websites, held
In keeping with its birth at CERN, early adopters of the that a website not accessible through Lynx wasn’t worth
World Wide Web were primarily university-based scien- visiting.
tific departments or physics laboratories such as Fermilab The first Microsoft Windows browser was Cello, writand SLAC. By January 1993 there were fifty Web servers ten by Thomas R. Bruce for the Legal Information Insti-
3
tute at Cornell Law School to provide legal information,
since access to Windows was more widespread amongst
lawyers than access to Unix. Cello was released in June
1993.[12]
4 1996–1998: Commercialization
of the Web
The Web was first popularized by Mosaic,[22] a graphical browser launched in 1993 by Marc Andreessen's
team at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) at the University of Illinois at UrbanaChampaign (UIUC).[23] The origins of Mosaic date to
1992. In November 1992, the NCSA at the University of Illinois (UIUC) established a website. In December 1992, Andreessen and Eric Bina, students attending
UIUC and working at the NCSA, began work on Mosaic with funding from the High-Performance Computing and Communications Initiative, a US-federal research
and development program.[24] Andreessen and Bina released a Unix version of the browser in February 1993;
Mac and Windows versions followed in August 1993.[14]
The browser gained popularity due to its strong support of
integrated multimedia, and the authors’ rapid response to
user bug reports and recommendations for new features.
Main article: Web marketing
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, displaying products
on hypertext webpages, were added into the Web.
5 1999–2001:
“Dot-com” boom
After graduation from UIUC, Andreessen and James H.
and bust
Clark, former CEO of Silicon Graphics, met and formed
Mosaic Communications Corporation to develop the Mosaic browser commercially. The company changed its
name to Netscape in April 1994, and the browser was Low interest rates in 1998–99 facilitated an increase in
start-up companies. Although a number of these new endeveloped further as Netscape Navigator.
trepreneurs 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-com concept.
Historically, the dot-com boom can be seen as similar to
a number of other technology-inspired booms of the past
including railroads in the 1840s, automobiles in the early
3.2 Web governance
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 in
In May 1994, the first International WWW Confer- the early 1980s.
ence, organized by Robert Cailliau,[25][10] was held at In 2001 the bubble burst, and many dot-com startups
CERN;[26] the conference has been held every year since. went out of business after burning through their venture
In April 1993, CERN had agreed that anyone could use capital and failing to become profitable. Many others,
the Web protocol and code royalty-free; this was in part however, did survive and thrive in the early 21st century.
a reaction to the perturbation caused by the University of Many companies which began as online retailers blosMinnesota's announcement that it would begin charging somed and became highly profitable. More conventional
license fees for its implementation of the Gopher proto- retailers found online merchandising to be a profitable
col.
additional source of revenue. While some online enterIn September 1994, Berners-Lee founded the World
Wide Web Consortium (W3C) at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology with support from the Defense
Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and the
European Commission. 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 its standards must be
based on royalty-free technology, so they can be easily
adopted by anyone.
tainment 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 means 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.
4
6
8
REFERENCES
2002–present: The Web becomes
ubiquitous
uitous, 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
In the aftermath of the dot-com bubble, telecommuni- they have sold and shipped to their customers, and cuscations companies had a great deal of overcapacity as tomers are able to interact with the manufacturer (and
many Internet business clients went bust. That, plus on- other providers) to access new content.
going investment in local cell infrastructure kept connec“Web 2.0” has found a place in the English lexicon.[27]
tivity charges low, and helping to make high-speed Internet connectivity more affordable. During this time, a
handful of companies found success developing business 6.2 The semantic web
models that helped make the World Wide Web a more
compelling experience. These include airline booking Popularized by Berners-Lee’s book Weaving the Web[28]
sites, Google's search engine and its profitable approach and a Scientific American article by Berners-Lee, James
to keyword-based advertising, as well as eBay's auction Hendler, and Ora Lassila,[29] the term Semantic Web desite and Amazon.com's online department store.
scribes an evolution of the existing Web in which the netThis new era also begot social networking websites, such work of hyperlinked human-readable web pages is exas MySpace and Facebook, which gained acceptance tended by machine-readable metadata about documents
and how they are related to each other, enabling autorapidly and became a central part of youth culture.
mated agents to access the Web more intelligently and
perform tasks on behalf of users. This has yet to happen.
In 2006, Berners-Lee and colleagues stated that the idea
6.1 Web 2.0
“remains largely unrealized”.[30]
Beginning in 2002, new ideas for sharing and exchanging content ad hoc, such as Weblogs and RSS, rapidly
gained acceptance on the Web. This new model for information exchange, primarily featuring user-generated and
user-edited websites, was dubbed Web 2.0. The Web 2.0
boom saw many new service-oriented startups catering to
a newly democratized Web.
As the Web became easier to query, it attained a greater
ease of use overall and gained a sense of organization
which ushered in a period of rapid popularization. New
sites such as Wikipedia and its sister projects are based on
the concept of user edited content. In 2005, three former
PayPal employees created a video viewing website called
YouTube, which became popular quickly and introduced
a new concept of user-submitted content in major events,
as in the CNN-YouTube Presidential Debates.
The popularity of YouTube, Facebook, etc., combined
with the increasing availability and affordability of highspeed 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 Web has focused on connecting devices to the Internet, coined Intelligent Device
Management. As Internet connectivity becomes ubiq-
7 See also
• Hypermedia
• Linked Data
• Computer Lib / Dream Machines
• History of hypertext
• History of the web browser
• History of web syndication technology
8 References
[1] Quittner, Joshua (March 29, 1999). “Network designer”.
Time.
[2] Tim Berners-Lee. “Frequently asked questions”. World
Wide Web Consortium. Retrieved 22 July 2010.
[3] Berners-Lee, Tim. “Frequently asked questions - Start of
the web: Influences”. World Wide Web Consortium. Retrieved 22 July 2010.
[4] Berners-Lee, Tim. “Frequently asked questions - Why the
//, #, etc?". World Wide Web Consortium. Retrieved 22
July 2010.
[5] Wright, Alex (2014-07-10). Cataloging the World: Paul
Otlet and the Birth of the Information Age. Oxford ; New
York: OUP USA. pp. 8––15. ISBN 9780199931415.
[6] Segal, Ben (1995). “A Short History of Internet Protocols
at CERN”. W3C.org.
5
[7] Berners-Lee, Tim (March 1989). “Information Management: A Proposal”. World Wide Web Consortium. Retrieved 24 August 2010.
[26] “IW3C2 - Past and Future Conferences”. International World Wide Web Conferences Steering Committee. 2010-05-02. Retrieved 16 May 2010.
[8] Gromov, Gregory (2011). “The Next Crossroad of Web
History”. Net Valley.
[27] "'Millionth English Word' declared”. BBC News. June 19,
2009.
[9] Berners-Lee, Tim (2000-11-07). Weaving the Web:
The Original Design and Ultimate Destiny of the World
Wide Web. San Francisco: Harper. p. 23. ISBN
9780062515872.
[28] Berners-Lee, Tim (2000-11-07). Weaving the Web: The
Original Design and Ultimate Destiny of the World Wide
Web. San Francisco: Harper. pp. 177––198. ISBN
9780062515872.
[10] Tim Berners-Lee. “Frequently asked questions - Robert
Cailliau’s role”. World Wide Web Consortium. Retrieved
22 July 2010.
[29] Berners-Lee, Tim; James Hendler; Ora Lassila (May 1,
2001). “The Semantic Web”. Scientific American. Retrieved March 13, 2008.
[11] Berners-Lee, Tim. “The Original HTTP as defined in
1991”. W3C.org.
[30] Shadbolt, Nigel; Wendy Hall; Tim Berners-Lee (2006).
“The Semantic Web Revisited”. IEEE Intelligent Systems.
Retrieved April 13, 2007.
[12] Berners-Lee, Tim (ca 1993/1994). “A Brief History of
the Web”. World Wide Web Consortium. Retrieved 17
August 2010. Check date values in: |date= (help)
[13] Galbraith, David (July 8, 2010). “Tim Berners-Lee: Confirming the exact location of the invention of the web”.
DavidGalbraith.org.
[14] Raggett, Dave; Jenny Lam; Ian Alexander (1996-04).
HTML 3: Electronic Publishing on the World Wide Web.
Harlow, England ; Reading, Mass: Addison-Wesley. p.
21. ISBN 9780201876932. Check date values in: |date=
(help)
[15] Murawski, John (24 May 2013). “Hunt for world’s oldest
WWW page leads to UNC Chapel Hill”. News & Observer.
[16] Shubber, Khadim (April 13, 2013). “First ever web page
put back online by CERN”. Wired.
[17] Brodkin, John (April 30, 2013). “First website ever goes
back online on the open Web’s 20th birthday”. Ars Technica.
[18] Ward, Mark (3 August 2006). “How the web went world
wide”. BBC News. Retrieved 24 January 2011.
[19] Berners-Lee, Tim. “Qualifiers on Hypertext links...”.
alt.hypertext. Retrieved 11 July 2012.
[20] Berners-Lee, Tim (2000-11-07). Weaving the Web:
The Original Design and Ultimate Destiny of the World
Wide Web. San Francisco: Harper. p. 46. ISBN
9780062515872.
[21] Heather McCabe (1999-02-09). “Grrl Geeks Rock Out”.
Wired magazine.
[22] Stewart, William. “Mosaic: The First Global Web
Browser”. The Living Internet.
[23] NCSA Mosaic – September 10, 1993 Demo
[24] Gore, Al (February 14, 1996). “The Technology Challenge: How Can America Spark Private Innovation?".
[25] Robert Cailliau (November 2, 1995). “A Short History of
the Web: Text of a speech delivered at the launching of
the European branch of the W3 Consortium”. Net Valley.
Retrieved 21 July 2010.
9 External links
• First World Web site
• Bemer, Bob, “A History of Source Concepts for the
Internet/Web”
• The World Wide Web History Project
• Important Events in the History of the World Wide
Web
• “Principal Figures in the Development of the Internet and the World Wide Web”. University of North
Carolina. Retrieved July 3, 2006.
• “How It All Started” (slides), Tim Berners-Lee,
W3C, December 2004
• “A Little History of the World Wide Web: from
1945 to 1995”, Dan Connolly, W3C, 2000
• “The World Wide Web: Past, Present and Future”,
Tim Berners-Lee, August 1996
• Internet History, Computer History Museum
• 25 Years of the Internet
6
10
10
10.1
TEXT AND IMAGE SOURCES, CONTRIBUTORS, AND LICENSES
Text and image sources, contributors, and licenses
Text
• History of the World Wide Web Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History%20of%20the%20World%20Wide%20Web?oldid=
654676821 Contributors: William Avery, Edward, Nealmcb, Michael Hardy, Ronz, Samsara, Bevo, Nurg, Academic Challenger, Rursus, Davodd, Taliswolf, Radagast, Akadruid, Netoholic, Bkonrad, Fanf, Beland, FoeNyx, Adam850, Samboy, Michael Zimmermann,
Nchaimov, Mavhc, EurekaLott, Coolcaesar, Longhair, Artw, Frodet, Onodera, Velella, Stephan Leeds, Tainter, Thryduulf, MONGO,
KingsleyIdehen, MarcoTolo, Dysepsion, Behun, Terryn3, ElCharismo, Plau, Rjwilmsi, JoshuacUK, Phantom784, Bubba73, Xmoogle,
Ewlyahoocom, Gurch, Stevenfruitsmaak, Ysw1987, King of Hearts, RussBot, WAvegetarian, Groogle, RadioFan2 (usurped), Eleassar, Exir
Kamalabadi, Epugachev, Kwh, Vlad, Brisvegas, Ms2ger, Zompist, Badlands17, Katieh5584, Rwwww, Roke, A bit iffy, SmackBot, Classicfilms, Pavlovič, Renesis, Agentbla, ARK, Jprg1966, Letdorf, BBCWatcher, Konstable, Darth Panda, Newmanbe, Hildanknight, Neo139,
Sidious1701, Aldaron, PiMaster3, RolandR, Mwtoews, Candorwien, Mchavez, SilkTork, Michael Bednarek, Green Giant, A. Parrot,
MihalOrel, Mets501, PDXblazers, Levineps, Kencf0618, CGMullin, Lenoxus, 1.618033989, Womzilla, Cydebot, Eu.stefan, DavidRF,
Satori Son, Epbr123, Wikid77, SusanLesch, AntiVandalBot, Shirt58, Darklilac, Barek, Bongwarrior, Rodeojava, Kgfleischmann, Paliku, Gwern, ShaunL, CommonsDelinker, Tgeairn, Ssolbergj, J.delanoy, MITBeaverRocks, A1asdair, Janus Shadowsong, Chiswick Chap,
Vega Nexos, SJP, Juliancolton, Whiteandnerdy52, Scewing, HamatoKameko, VolkovBot, Philip Trueman, PNG crusade bot, DoorsAjar, Muro de Aguas, Vipinhari, The Negotiator, Vchimpanzee, Ytrrr, GOnly, SieBot, Malcolmxl5, Oxymoron83, PhilMacD, Wesmatson, Johnanth, ImageRemovalBot, ClueBot, Snigbrook, CounterVandalismBot, Trivialist, Vycanis, Excirial, Ottre, Rhododendrites,
Cokeabout, CodeCaster, Safvan007017, Dorgan65, Versus22, DumZiBoT, XLinkBot, Chairsenses, Robert Pollard, Nicolae Coman, Addbot, Markenrode, Guoguo12, Mabdul, Tothwolf, A0602336, Fieldday-sunday, Scientus, Luckas Blade, Luckas-bot, Yobot, Hagoleshet,
AnomieBOT, Ciphers, Scopefx13, Materialscientist, Citation bot, FreeRangeFrog, Wassailant, Capricorn42, Sql qassem, Shadowjams,
Daaah5, Naru12333, Pianoplonkers, Full-date unlinking bot, Kgrad, Vrenator, WikitanvirBot, Nick1234554321, GoingBatty, Fæ, Ocaasi,
Tolly4bolly, Jbro0428, 28bot, ClueBot NG, Enumer8tor, Wikifun95, Helpful Pixie Bot, Glacialfox, Drinkdrinker, YFdyh-bot, Ekren,
Wikiew, Graphium, Jiminycrock, Homechallenge55, Dillonbroadus, Melody Lavender, Concord hioz, Monkbot, Anushreepokhrel and
Anonymous: 226
10.2
Images
• File:Cailliau_Abramatic_Berners-Lee_10_years_WWW_consortium.png
Source:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/
commons/d/d3/Cailliau_Abramatic_Berners-Lee_10_years_WWW_consortium.png License: CC BY-SA 2.5 Contributors: received by
e-mail, part of e-mail interview with Robert Cailliau Original artist: Robert Cailliau
• File:First_Web_Server.jpg Source: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d1/First_Web_Server.jpg License: CC-BY-SA3.0 Contributors: Own work Original artist: User:Coolcaesar at en.wikipedia
• File:Folder_Hexagonal_Icon.svg Source: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/4/48/Folder_Hexagonal_Icon.svg License: Cc-bysa-3.0 Contributors: ? Original artist: ?
• File:Internet_Key_Layers.png Source: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/39/Internet_Key_Layers.png License: CC
BY-SA 4.0 Contributors: Own work Original artist: Concord hioz
• File:WWW_logo_by_Robert_Cailliau.svg Source: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b2/WWW_logo_by_Robert_
Cailliau.svg License: Public domain Contributors: Vectorization of Image:WWWlogo.png Original artist: Hell Pé (PNG version); Bibi
Saint-Pol (SVG version)
• File:Wikinews-logo.svg Source: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/24/Wikinews-logo.svg License: CC BY-SA 3.0
Contributors: This is a cropped version of Image:Wikinews-logo-en.png. Original artist: Vectorized by Simon 01:05, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
Updated by Time3000 17 April 2007 to use official Wikinews colours and appear correctly on dark backgrounds. Originally uploaded by
Simon.
10.3
Content license
• Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0