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World Wide Web – Backbone of the Internet

World Wide Web is basically a global system of information across different devices that we can connect to the internet.

It allows an internet user to access information about a variety of topics from anywhere with the help of all the available websites.

Let’s talk about what were the actual limitations or circumstances of the internet which led somebody to think about the invention of such technology.

It has really changed our way of communication and accessing any kind of information. But it is quite interesting how this very useful and very comfortable technology came into existence.

world-wide-web

Contents-

  1. What is World Wide Web?
  2. Limitations of Early Internet
  3. Father of World Wide Web
  4. Idea behind Internet Revolution
  5. Technologies that Created Web
  6. Invention of World Wide Web
  7. Early Web Browsers
  8. World Wide Web Consortium
  9. Important Events of Web History
  10. Interesting Facts About Web
  11. Conclusion
  12. FAQs

1. What is World Wide Web?

First of all, let me tell you that the Internet and World Wide Web are not the same things. Internet is the interconnected network of all the computers through underground cables, and Web is a service of the internet just like e-mail is a service.

It is a global system of information through which people can get information about anything by sitting at their own place anywhere in the world.

The users just need to have an internet connection and internet access device such as a computer or mobile phone.

world-wide-web

2. Limitations of Early Internet

When the internet became available for normal public use, some people started to use it at home and some started to use it in their profession for the exchange of messages through e-mail.

But, there was a limitation in the e-mail facility that we had to keep the sender and receiver online at the same time to make the transmission of the message possible.

In the e-mail system, the message did not store anywhere and we could not retrieve the message until we keep the receiver machine switched on.

3. Father of World Wide Web

There was a British computer scientist Sir Tim Berners Lee who recognized the potential of the internet and identified the problem of early-stage.

His full name was ‘Timothy John Berners Lee’ and he was born in England. He was working for a European Nuclear Research Organization, CERN.

He wanted to develop the system of sharing information among different computers. On 12th March 1989, he submitted a document to the management of CERN and named ‘Information Management: A Proposal’.

tim-berners-lee-father-of-web

The members of CERN didn’t accept the initial proposal, but his boss Mike Sendallfelt allowed him to work on his project.

One of his colleagues Robert Cailliau agreed with him because he knew his vision, and was enthusiastic about the development of Tim Berners Lee’s technology.

After investing his time in the project of hypertext documents, Lee gave birth to a new technology. It totally changed the way of using the internet in the whole world and hence we know him as the Father of World Wide Web for this contribution.

4. Idea behind Internet Revolution

The major problem arriving in the exchange of information was that instead of following a single path, the message reaches the destination by traveling the paths defined for each data packet.

The data didn’t be store anywhere and we had leave both the computers online for successful communication otherwise, we had to send the whole message again whether it is a small text or a large paragraph.

sender-and-receiver-computer

Sir Tim Berners Lee thought that instead of switching on both the computers of the sender and receiver end, we can send and store any information on a single computer by assigning a specific address to that computer.

He kept that computer switched on all the time and whenever anybody wants to access that information they could retrieve it by entering the path of that information on their computer.

Analogous to a notice board of a college where the authorities update the information on the notice board and anybody can read it. This was the basic idea which actually revolutionized the flow of information on the internet.

5. Technologies that Created Web

HTML

HTML stands for Hypertext Markup Language which is useful to create webpages. It is a language that uses HTML tags and creates all the basic elements of a website such as texts, images, lists, tables, borders, buttons, forms, etc.

URL

Tim created URI (Uniform Resource Identifier) also to provide a unique identity to every webpage, and now we call it URL which means Uniform Resource Locator.

We can open any webpage directly by entering its URL in a browser. Every web identity such as webpage, image, audio, video, or any document file has its own URL.

WWW Browser

The HTML documents can be a complex piece of code for a normal internet user. So, there was a requirement of software that can read the HTML data in and represent it to the user in a graphical form. We call this software a browser as we can browse any webpage as well as website through it.

HTTP Protocol

HTTP stands for Hypertext Transfer Protocol which is a set of rules to monitor as well as control the transmission of information between a client and a server over the web.

Basically, it is the base of communication which includes the transmission of requests from the client on the click of a hyperlink and response from the server to provide the required data. The text in the hyperlink is anchor text.

Server

The server is nothing typical, but a computer with high computing abilities that stores a lot of data inside and has a unique IP address.

It is always switched on and also connected to the internet always. Whenever a client enters a URL in a browser to open any webpage, an HTTP request is sent to the computer.

Since it stores the required information and that computer serves data to the client, we call it ‘server’.

6. Invention of World Wide Web

The first proposal of Tim Berners Lee for the hypertext system was not supported by the members of CERN but Lee was pretty sure about his vision. In May 1990 he circulated the proposal again.

At CERN Sir Tim Berners Lee used a NeXT Computer System to develop the technologies such as HTML, HTTP, and the world’s first Web Browser.

By the end of the year 1990, Lee finally completed the development of all the necessary tools (including hardware and software) for the invention of the World Wide Web.

World’s First Website Ever

The address of the world’s first website ever is http://info.cern.ch which is still active. In this website, Tim Berners Lee described all the technical as well as practical details of his WWW Project.

world's-first-website-ever

Moreover, the first webpage of this website is http://info.cern.ch/hypertext/WWW/TheProject.html and this website was hosted on a computer of CERN.

Lee had written a straightaway message on it for all other employees that “This computer is a server. Please do not turn off the power supply” so that the website could always remain online and accessible.

first-webpage-of-world's-first-website

World’s First Web Browser

The world’s first browser developed by Tim Berners Lee was a web editor also. The name of this browser was the World Wide Web browser which was later changed to Nexus.

It could run on NeXT computers and capable to display many file types such as graphics, sounds, videos, etc.

world's-first-web-browser

7. Early Web Browsers

Line Mode Browser

The only issue with the World Wide Web browser was that it could run on a computer with the NeXTSTEP platform specifically which was not widely used by the public at that time.

The home computers came with Windows operating system. Therefore Line Mode Browser was developed in 1991 and expanded to a limited number of users initially.

It was the second web browser of the world which could be operated by command line inputs in the same way as DOS operating system.

line-mode-browser

Mosaic Browser

In 1992 a stable version of Line Mode browser was released publicly but because of the command-line interface, it was not liked by the people as there was no option of even a mouse click.

For a better compatibility as well as user experience, Marc Andreessen and his team developed the Mosaic Browser at National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA).

Mosaic browser was undoubtedly the first popular web browser with a graphical interface that was responsible for the growth of Web and internet boom.

mosaic-browser

8. World Wide Web Consortium

Sir Tim Berners Lee always wanted web services to be royalty-free. To prevent the misuse and illegal access of this technology he decided to establish a committee that will work for the welfare and overall development of his project.

On 1st October 1994, he established World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) which is a standard non-profit organization and especially works for the development of Web Standards with time.

Tim Berners Lee is the director of W3C and Jeffrey Jaffe is the CEO and the mission of W3C is “Web for all”. World Wide Web Consortium is chiefly regulated by

  • MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (MIT CSAIL) of US
  • European Research Consortium for Informatics and Mathematics (ERCIM)
  • Keio University of Japan
  • Beihang University of China.

Other than these, more than 390 organizations have participated in World Wide Web Consortium and the standards developed by W3C for the progress of web technologies are

  • CGI
  • CSS
  • DOM
  • XHTML
  • XML
  • HTTPS.
world-wide-web-consortium-logo

9.  Important Events of Web History

YearEvent
1989Tim Berners Lee submitted the proposal of his WWW project
1990All the technologies to create World Wide Web were developed
1991The first ever website of the world was published online
1992Line mode browser 1.1 released and available for public  use
1993Mosaic browser launched which was first GUI browser for audience
1994World Wide Web (W3C) Consortium was established
infographic-important-events-of-web-history

10. Interesting Facts About Web

  • Initially, Tim Berners Lee considered two names for his invention, Information Mesh or Information Mine, but at last settled to “World Wide Web”.
  • In September 1990 Tim Berners Lee pitched his idea to European Conference, but none of the vendors agreed with his technology of hyperlinking.
  • The NeXT Computer used to develop World Wide Web and WWW Browser was made by NeXT Inc., a company of Steve Jobs (after Apple).
  • The first image which was uploaded on the web was basically a comedy band names Les Horribles Cernettes in 1992 at CERN laboratory.
first-image-on-internet
  • The first website is available on the CERN website but Paul Jones said in 2013 that he has a copy of a webpage that Tim Berners Lee sent him in 1991 and it was the first webpage ever.
  • Marc Andreessen left NCSA in 1994 and started Mosaic Communications Corporation to create Netscape and lastly, Mosaic Browser became Netscape Navigator.

11. Conclusion

The invention of the World Wide Web has really made the flow of the internet very convenient. It was the major reason behind the developments of websites that allowed businesses to connect online.

It was the starting of a new digital era. People became familiar with the internet and adopted new growing technology.

In this way, the internet got its potential growth and people starting connecting to each other in a better way. Hence, it is the backbone of the internet.

FAQs

1. What is the difference between Internet and World Wide Web?

Internet is a network which has been developed by spreading underground cables all over the world to connect all the devices. World Wide Web is a service that is used with the help of the internet. It is a global system that made the flow of information easier.

2. Is Web and World Wide Web the same thing?

Yes, both are the same thing. Actually, Web is the short name for the term World Wide Web. It is the system that is responsible for the distribution of information and make it available to every user on the internet.

3. Who invented World Wide Web?

Si Tim Berners Lee, a great british scientist developed all the technologies required for this innovation and created World Wide Web. He is known as the “Father of World Wide Web” for this contribution.

4. Why was World Wide Web created?

In the early stage of internet, people were able to send messages in the form of text. Both sender and receiver had to stay online at the time of message transmission otherwise the message lost.
Sir Tim Berners Lee found a way to store the information on a computer (server) and allow any internet user to gather that information through its URL.

5. What is NeXT Inc.?

NeXT Inc. is a computer and software company founded by Steve Jobs in 1985. He started this company when once he was forced out of his company Apple. He developed first NeXT Computer in 1988 that run on NeXTSTEP platform (an object oriented operating system).

Digital Marketer | SEO Strategist | WordPress Developer | Content Writer | Graphics Designer | Video Editor | YouTuber

Kishan Chourasiyahttps://chourasiyakishan.in
Digital Marketer | SEO Strategist | WordPress Developer | Content Writer | Graphics Designer | Video Editor | YouTuber
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