http://info.cern.ch/hypertext/WWW/TheProject.html
Today marks the 20th (I know what your thinking..only 20th!?) anniversary of the world wide web. As a result, the very first website has been restored to it's original web address and is available for your viewing pleasure (or horror, depending on how you look at it).
What's perhaps the most interesting about the whole thing, is that it gives a very raw look at the original intentions and dreams for the internet. The site provides the following explanation for those who back in 1993, would have been wondering just what this new "World Wide Web" was all about.
"The WorldWideWeb (W3) is a wide-area hypermedia information retrieval initiative aiming to give universal access to a large universe of documents."
Looking at that explanation, one can ascertain that we have certainly met the initial expectation of "document access". Some would even argue, that we have provided way to much access and in a manner that some find most illegal (..The Pirate Bay, Wikileaks.. and so the list could roll on and on). Also interesting, is that the internet has expanded beyond mere "document access" and moved to more of a social access tool.
To illustrate my point, let's talk Seinfeld.
Last night, I was watching an episode of Seinfeld where Kramer goes to the Cayman Islands in place of George (whom to his displeasure was warned for reasons unknown against going on the trip). When Kramer arrives back in town, he tells Jerry and George about the wild experience the trip provided him (for starters, witnessing the array Sports Illustrated swimsuit models lay beside him on a nude beach).
Now, I was struck by this scene as I watched last nights re-rerun. What exactly struck me as interesting? The fact that in today's age, Jerry and George would have known about the SI models in realtime. You bet that Kramer would have been tweeting, instagramming, and facebooking that hell out of that moment, or at the very least texting his friends about his fortune.
The idea that in todays world, one of our friends would experience such a moment and not tell us instantly, is shocking. Now would Kramer have enjoyed the moment as much, had he been looking at a screen and not the models? Well... that's a whole other can of worms for another day and another article.
What we can say for sure, is that the internet has transformed our world and given us not only "document access" but "social access" as well. So whatever your opinions of file-sharing, media streaming, cloud storage, social networking are, be sure to take a moment today and salute the wonder of human innovation that is the world wide web.
jacobvanloon
gummygunk
snowghoul
germansingergirl
kaledo-art
theartofmadeline
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annaxmalina