World Wide Web

World Wide Web

To some people, the term "World Wide Web" is synonymous with "Internet," but others define it as a graphical interface for using many parts of the Internet. The World Wide Web has become one of the best known and most used aspects of the Internet.

The Internet itself began as an experiment created by the Advanced Research Projects Agency of the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) in the 1960s. It was a network called ARPANET (Advanced Research Projects Agency Network). The first networked computers of ARPANET were connected in 1965; a low-speed telephone line brought together a computer in California and another in Massachusetts. As it grew, ARPANET connected DoD sites with university research facilities worldwide, but not in a linear way. The connections were made so that if several of them were broken, many sites would still be in full contact with one another. The non-linear connections reminded people of a web, and that is where some people believe that the name World Wide Web originated.

In 1972 ARPANET was given its first public demonstration at an International Conference on Computer Communications. It was still primarily an entity within the domain of the DoD and its university research partners. During the next decade, however, the corporate world began to enter the networked computer world. In 1979 CompuServe was the first service to offer electronic mail communication. By 1985, the Internet was heavily used to support communications among researchers and technology developers in a variety of academic and corporate fields.

Once people outside of the original group of users obtained access, this network began linking with other networks and the Internet began its fast growth. Soon software was developed that took advantage of "clickable buttons" and non-linear connections. This software was written in code called Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) . It allowed users to move from place to place on the web without having to follow a set path, and without having to type in strings of text commands as they previously had to do.

In 1990 Tim Berners-Lee wrote the first graphical user interface (GUI) browser program for the Internet. He called it "WorldWideWeb," although the name was later changed to Nexus, to avoid confusing the program itself with the larger entity that became known as the World Wide Web.

By October 1993, there were at least 200 known HTTP (Hypertext Transfer Protocol) servers on the web, and the Mosaic browser had been released for all common computer platforms, including PC/Windows and Macintosh computers. America Online, which was first available to Macintosh and Apple II users in 1989, launched a Windows-based online service and reached 500,000 subscribers by the end of 1993.

The next year, Marc Andreessen, who was one of the developers of the Mosaic browser, formed the company that would become known as Netscape, which is also the name of the company's popular web browser. Also in 1994, Stanford University Ph.D. candidates David Filo and Jerry Yang began compiling an online guide to interesting sites on the Internet. Once known as Jerry's Guide to the World Wide Web, the list was renamed Yahoo! What started as a hobby turned into a rapidly growing business by the following year.

Popular web browser packages include Netscape Navigator and Microsoft Internet Explorer; online service providers also offer proprietary packages that include browsers and search capabilities. Since new sites are added to the World Wide Web almost by the minute, search engines are widely used to seek out sites that match the needs of web surfers . Search engines use a variety of ways to categorize information, depending on the engine. Many offer keyword searches and use Boolean operators to make searches effective. Among the most popular search engines are names such as Yahoo!, Google, AltaVista, and Lycos. Metasearch sites, such as CNet's search.com and others, combine the resources of multiple search engines to answer a user's query for information.

The World Wide Web has influenced our society in major ways. Businesses, individuals, schools, non-profit organizations, even churches, use web sites to offer information to anyone who wants it. Classes and courses are offered via the Internet, and people can use the World Wide Web to keep in touch with family who are away from home, via e-mail or personal web pages, and meet new friends in countries they have never visited. It is now nearly impossible to have any contact with books, magazines, television, or radio and not be offered a web address, also known as a Uniform Resource Locator (URL), to visit.

Widespread access to the Internet and the World Wide Web has created new issues in the areas of ethics, economics, privacy, and protection of individual rights. In many schools and public libraries, debate continues over whether and how to restrict access to certain types of web sites. The ease of sharing and reusing graphics, text, and music files has led to concerns about copyright and protecting the rights of the creators of music, video, photographs, graphic art, and original documents. The cost of providing, maintaining, and updating online resources has also resulted in controversy about free access vs. paid subscriptions. As a medium for information, education, entertainment, and commerce, the World Wide Web is still in its early stages.

see also Browsers; Hypermedia and Multimedia; Hypertext; Internet; Networks; Search Engines.

Shirley Campbell

Internet Resources

"A Brief History of the Internet." Internet Society (ISOC). <http://www.isoc.org/internet-history/brief.html>

"A Little History of the World Wide Web From 1945–1995." The World Wide Web Consortium. <http://www.w3.org/History.html>