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.

The hypertext portion of the Web in particular has an intricate intellectual history; notable influences and precursors include Vannevar Bush's Memex, IBM's Generalized Markup Language, and Ted Nelson's Project Xanadu.

The concept of a home-based global information system goes at least as far back as "A Logic Named Joe", a 1946 short story by Murray Leinster, 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.

Read more about History Of The World Wide Web:  1979–1991: Development of The World Wide Web, 1992–1995: Growth of The WWW, 1996–1998: Commercialization of The WWW, 1999–2001: "Dot-com" Boom and Bust, 2002–present: The Web Becomes Ubiquitous

Famous quotes containing the words history of, history, world, wide and/or web:

    “Anyone who is practically acquainted with scientific work is aware that those who refuse to go beyond fact rarely get as far as fact; and anyone who has studied the history of science knows that almost every great step therein has been made by the “anticipation of Nature.””
    —Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–95)

    “In all history no class has been enfranchised without some selfish motive underlying. If to-day we could prove to Republicans or Democrats that every woman would vote for their party, we should be enfranchised.”
    —Carrie Chapman Catt (1859–1947)

    “Dylan is to me the perfect symbol of the anti-artist in our society. He is against everything—the last resort of someone who doesn’t really want to change the world.... Dylan’s songs accept the world as it is.”
    —Ewan MacColl (1915–1989)

    “Devouring Time, blunt thou the lion’s paws,
    And make the earth devour her own sweet brood;
    Pluck the keen teeth from the fierce tiger’s jaws,
    And burn the long-liv’d phoenix in her blood;
    Make glad and sorry seasons as thou fleet’st,
    And do what’er thou wilt, swift-footed Time,
    To the wide world and all her fading sweets;”
    —William Shakespeare (1564–1616)

    “With as little a web as this will I ensnare as great a fly as Cassio.”
    —William Shakespeare (1564–1616)