7 Things to know about the world wide web as it celebrates 3 decades
Today (12 March 2019) marks a significant anniversary in British technology with the 30th anniversary of the World Wide Web (WWW).
In 1989, working at the European Organisation for Nuclear Research, known as CERN, Sir Tim Berners-Lee submitted a proposal for information management that would go on to transform the way people communicate and consume information.
Today, there are nearly two billion websites online and it is hard to imagine life without the web, and this is all thanks to Sir Tim Berners-Lee.
Sir Tim Berners-Lee
1. The World Wide Web was developed out of frustration
Sir Tim invented the World Wide Web because he was frustrated to have to constantly log on to a different computer every time he wanted to access different information not on his main computer.
2. ‘Vague but exciting’
Sir Tim’s boss at CERN, Mike Sendall, left three short but powerful words when he first received the proposal paper for the World Wide Web: “Vague but exciting.”
At the end, he simply said: “And now?”
3. The World Wide Web is not the same as the internet
The World Wide Web and the internet are wrongly confused as the same thing – something Sir Tim is quick to correct people on.
The internet, which is a network of networks formed of computers, existed long before the World Wide Web.
WWW is the transfer of information, whether it be text, documents or other rich content like videos.
4. The World Wide Web was almost called something completely different
Sir Tim considered a number of name options before settling on World Wide Web.
Among the contenders were Mine of Information, The Information Mine and Information Mesh.
5. The first website just explained what the World Wide Web was
The first web page, defining what the Web is, did not go live until August 6, 1991.
A copy of it can still be viewed here today.
6. The first web browser was also called WorldWideWeb
Years before the Internet Explorer, Sir Tim also created the first web browser, which went by the same name, WorldWideWeb.
7. You can still see how the Web looked originally
Anyone can try the browser out by visiting https://worldwideweb.cern.ch.
