20 Years Ago Today, The World Wide Web Opened To The Public

[george]

20 years ago today, the World Wide Web opened to the public

Today is a significant day in the history of the Internet. On 6 August 1991, exactly twenty years ago, the World Wide Web became publicly available. Its creator, the now internationally known Tim Berners-Lee, published the first Web page and gave birth to a new technology which would fundamentally change the world as we knew it.

The World Wide Web has its foundation in work that Berners-Lee did in the 1980s at CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research. He had been looking for a way for physicists to share information around the world without all using the same types of hardware and software. This culminated in his 1989 paper proposing ‘A large hypertext database with typed links’.

Full story: http://thenextweb.com/insider/2011/08/06/20-years-ago-today-the-world-wide-web-opened-to-the-public/

[Scott]

Thanks. Since I got up this morning, I thought this day is important for some reason. I checked my calendar thinking I missed someone's birthday.

Now I know, it was the WWW's birthday!

[koheesti]

Tim Berners-Lee? Naw, this guy here "...took the initiative to create the Internet". Thanks Al!! He's nuts, but he was the first one I ever heard talk about the "information super highway" way back in the early days.

Edited August 6, 2011 by koheesti

[chiang mai]

Possibly correct in some way or other but not really! Try this as a comparison:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Internet

[maidu]

The www has gone the way of a sleepy little seaside town that becomes Miami beach. From trust and innocence, to hard core scammers around every corner.

I sold publications when the web started. $12 each. I got dozens of c.card numbers per week via email. I deleted the c.card #s as soon as the books were shipped. Oh, such innocent days, just 15 years ago. Now rip-offs, keyloggers and scammers have infected the www so much, that large sites have security so tight they're essentially disfunctional. I'm doing less and less online, and more outdoors things.

Ebay calls itself an auction site, but hasn't had any real auctions for years. Ashton Tate had a pioneering 'windows' type software with their Framework program, at least 2 years before MSFT windows and Apple's came out. Indeed some of Framework's whistles and bells were better, 18 years ago, than anything MSFT or Apple has been able to come up with in ensuing years. Infoseek was the best search engine before Google, but is now just a quaint memory. I have digital photo software that's 15 years old (Agfa) that works better (for me) and is easier to use than any of the 8 to 10 similar programs I've tried since.

It's like restaurants in Chiang Rai. For some odd reason, the best restaurants here close, whereas the ho hum restaurants persist. It's also like Bangkok being the highest priced real estate in Thailand, even though it's the most gridlocked, the least friendly, and most smog choked part of the country. Strange species we are. Good luck to the internet for the next 20 years. I'll be taking most of that time outdoors, enjoying nature (for real, not in pictures).

Edited August 7, 2011 by maidu

[bkkjames]

Maidu, you had me there - right up to the point you clicked enter.

Btw, I thought don't' call me AL ex vp invented the internet?