This week celebrates the 25th anniversary of the creation of the World Wide Web by Sir Tim Berners-Lee. His proposal of an “information management” system laid the foundation for the structure of the Web and by releasing his invention to the public for free, he ensured that the technology would be spread globally.
“The Web as I envisaged it, we have not seen it yet. The future is still so much bigger than the past” – Sir Tim Berners-Lee
Although many of us use the words “World Wide Web” and “Internet” interchangeably, technically, they are not correct. The ‘Internet’ is a global network connecting millions of computers from all around the globe, and the ‘Web’ is a way of accessing information, as it utilises browsers to access a massive collection of digital pages that are linked to each other via hyperlinks.
Now, as the Web turns a quarter of a century old, we can look back and see that it has changed humanity forever and has risen to prominence in almost all aspects of our lives. Never in the history of mankind have we had such quick and easy access to so much information – We browse, search, share, communicate with friends and family, do business, and learn … the list is limited only by imagination and creativity!
With a staggering amount of 2,161,530,000,000 (that’s two trillion one hundred sixty one billion five hundred thirty million) searches performed worldwide each month (as of December 2013), nearly 6 billion web searches are performed every day, proving that the Web is a staple in our day-to-day lives. The Web not only rapidly facilitates access to information, but also makes it easier to communicate with other people.
The latest research from the Pew Research Center “The Web at 25 in the US” concluded that the Internet has been a plus for society and especially good thing for individual users”. For us, at Kwasi Studios, the Internet is the air we breathe, and this is what we are passionate about.
Throughout 2014 we will strive to answer Sir Tim Berners-Lee’ Birthday Message in response to making the Web more useful in e-commerce and social interactions.
So, where will the Internet take us over the next 25 years?
As Sir Tim Berners-Lee says “You’ll see companies more and more operate through computers. So they’ll do their buying for instance through computers, because the data will be available for both buyer and seller, rather than with humans.”
Happy Birthday World Wide Web!
Woj’s side note: Thank you Sir Tim Berners-Lee – because of you, we all have jobs 🙂
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