Remember, remember the 6th of August

Tim Berners-Lee
Massachusetts Institute of Technology ,2000. 
Photo: Ed Quinn / Corbis

 

On August 6, 1991, the world witnessed the introduction and launch of the World Wide Web by Tim Berners-Lee. On this day, Berners-Lee posted the “first web pages summarizing his World Wide Web project, a method of storing knowledge using hypertext documents”. His post was put up on a certain alt.hypertext discussion group where other people were given the chance to download and work around with it. Remarkably, the idea of creating a “world wide web” started in 1980 when Berners-Lee began his project called the Enquire (basically the forerunner of the Web)  when he was still working at CERN.   

I found it rather amusing when I discovered that on the month I was born, something life-altering was brought out to the world. I bet back then, harvesting your strawberries or checking up on updates of celebrities wasn’t much of a big deal, neither was looking at the latest video with a million hits over night. Things were far different from what they are today, where it seems as if people have been absorbed to the cyber world – captivated and under the control of these things (or websites for this case), pretty much how drugs work (Why not make the internet illegal as well? But that’s obviously out of the question).

World Wide Web by ~art-exp
(DeviantArt)

As I read more articles regarding Berners-Lee and his “World Wide Web”, I slowly realize how things have rapidly changed through the years. Funny how my brain wasn’t even filled with any information back then but someone has already come up with something brilliant - the idea of linking people together. The World Wide Web we know today, though quite “new” as compared to other revolutionary inventions, has developed and improved greatly over a short span of time. From simpler web pages with more complicated and lengthy HTML codes, we now have more sophisticated pages with unfussy and unproblematic codes that practically anyone can master and create. Aside from rapid development, in a matter of years, the web has influenced a great number of people, if not almost everyone in the world, offering different things that cater to whatever need man can think of. We communicate and entertain ourselves using the web and the internet, and not to mention, we also gather a large amount of the information we use from them.

Ever since I exposed myself to this technological advancement, I couldn’t quite grasp what it would be like without it – how would the world be without the web? This modern innovation has made the world smaller in all aspects and has linked and connected people in different ways. I could never be more thankful for a Tim Berners-Lee who has made things more accessible and easy for the rest of us. However, I still strongly believe that we must never be slaves of what we create because, in the end, we still should take responsibility over our lives. These things we create, like the web, are meant to ease daily activities, not completely consume our time and effort for worthless doings. It’s not all about the strawberries you get, or the number of retweets and hits you receive in hours, nor is it about the image you project to everyone in your profile to catch the attention of someone. Tim Berners-Lee had an exceptional idea of connecting everyone on the phase of the planet so why waste it on just these when we can optimize the use of this commodity for further development and progress.

Posted by

 Jara Lucero

Sources:

"Internet History Timeline." History Timelines. Web. 13 Nov. 2010. <http://www.history-timelines.org.uk/events-timelines/11-internet-history-timeline.htm>.

Long, By Tony. "Aug. 7, 1991: Ladies and Gentlemen, the World Wide Web." Wired News. 7 Aug. 2007. Web. 13 Nov. 2010. <http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2007/08/dayintech_0807>.

Quittner, By Joshua. "TIME 100: Tim Berners-Lee." Time Inc. Portal. 29 Mar. 1999. Web. 13 Nov. 2010. <http://205.188.238.109/time/time100/scientist/profile/bernerslee.html>.

Ward, By Mark. "BBC NEWS | Technology | How the Web Went World Wide." BBC News - Home. 3 Aug. 2006. Web. 13 Nov. 2010. <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/5242252.stm>.

Tim Berners-Lee photo by Ed Quinn/Corbi. 2000. <http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2007/08/dayintech_0807#ixzz15sTWyt1U>

World Wide Web in Traditional Art/Drawings/Unsorted by ~art-exp in DeviantArt, copyright 2002-2010 <http://browse.deviantart.com/?q=world%20wide%20web&order=9&offset=48#/dfln5>