Lab project to foundation of multi-billion dollar companies – Web celebrates 21 years

Added by on August 20, 2012

The World Wide Web turned 21 on Saturday. The announcement of the “WorldWideWeb application” was made on Usenet, a world wide web discussion group, by Tim Berners-Lee who is known as the inventor of the World Wide Web as it works today.

The announcement of the general availability of the WorldWideWeb application, made on August 20 1991, said the WorldWideWeb application “could start a revolution in information access”. The announcement came after about one year of development by Tim Berners-Lee.

The WordWideWeb application included a portable HTTP daemon (a web server) and a portable line mode browser (an internet browser) that allowed users to view hyptertext documents.

The distinction between the Internet and World Wide Web application was important at the time, although the two terms are used interchangeably today. The Internet is a collection of globally interconnected, disparate private networks. The World Wide Web is a collection of text documents and other resources, like graphics and video, linked using links and web site addresses, accessed using a web browser, and served by a web server.

Today’s Internet traces its history to August 1962 when ideas that are fundamental to today’s Internet were discussed in a paper by computer scientist J. C. R. Licklider, of Bolt, Beranek and Newman (BBN), a high-tech company. The first message was transmitted over the Internet’s predecessor, called ARPANET, on October 29 1969. Nearly all aspects of today’s Internet were conceived, researched, and developed between the late 1940s to the 1970s, with advancements of fundamental ideas into today.

Arthur C. Clarke, a well-known inventor, science fiction author and futurist said in 1970, satellites would one day “bring the accumulated knowledge of the world to your fingertips” using software that combined photocopiers, telephones, television, and small computers to facilitate global data transfer and video conferencing.