On the 6th August 1991, the birth of what is now called the World Wide Web took place.
Originally created to allow scientists in a laboratory in Geneva to link up in order to share ideas and developments, the Web has grown to become one of the cornerstones of modern society, with there now being over 19 billion pages, three times the population of the planet.
London-born Oxford graduate Sir Tim Berners-Lee is accredited with the invention of this very modern phenomenon, and there is little doubt that this mans invention has changed the face of modern society massively. Berners-Lee, now 56, has revolutionised the technological age, fundamentally allowing the growth of a massive industry that provides an incredible amount of jobs to millions across the world.
The ‘dot com’ boom of the late 1990’s transformed the business and economic world, and phenomenons such as Google, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube are becoming deeply imbedded in the modern world, perhaps inalterably so.
It is therefore strange to think that only 20 years ago the World Wide Web was merely a project that had limited investment, resources and purpose. Now more than ever it seems to be illimitable, with the effects on both society and the individual becoming more and more talked about and noticeable.
The internet was formed some 20 years before the World Wide Web, originally to network millions of computer systems. What the World Wide Web brought to the fore however was the webpage, allowing information to be displayed in a more clear and cogent format.
Since then the Web has spread into all parts of modern society and it seems unlikely that there will be any change to the growth patterns the system has shown in recent times.One can only wonder what the World Wide Web will be and represent in another 20 years time. With use consistently expanding and a growing reliance upon it across all walks of life, it seems unlikely to diminish in any respect. Happy Birthday to the WWW for now though, let’s see what the coming years bring.
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