What is the Web?

Intro

Well, first things first. In day to day conversations I have heard that the most used word to refer to the World Wide Web (WWW for short) is the word ‘Internet’. Expressions like ‘I am going to search for this in internet’, ‘The internet has the answer you are looking for’, etc., all they refer to all the things that make possible this global network of people, computers, infrastructure, designers, developers, users, and a long etc. In everyday conversations we can just understand the meaning of those expressions without any problem. However, when we go a little bit further with this topic, we can find a whole rich universe full of concepts, stories, values and practices that shape what we call tha internet. Here, I want to explore some of those components of such a rich universe.

Internet vs the Web

According to MDN (Mozilla Developer Network), ‘The World Wide Web—commonly referred to as WWW, W3, or the Web—is a system of interconnected public webpages accessible through the Internet. The Web is not the same as the Internet: the Web is one of many applications built on top of the Internet.’ So, the first distinction is Web vs Internet. The former built on top of the latter. The former is more intangible, the latter more tangible. Internet is defined as a global network of networks that uses different protocols to allow the flux of information. Those networks are made upon tons of physical devices like computers, submarine cables, satellites, switches, routers, cables and so on. Internet is the backbone that make possible this global network. On the other hand, the W3 or simply the Web, is all the linked webpages accessible through the internet.

In the webpage of the W3C (World Wide Web Consortium), says that ‘The World Wide Web (known as “WWW’, “Web” or “W3”) is the universe of network-accessible information, the embodiment of human knowledge.’ Again, I can find another important concept related to the W3: network-accessible information. The W3 can be interpreted as a huge repository of human knowledge, or at least, human information. Although by the time I wrote this seed, there is another player producing and adding information to the W3. I am talking about AI. For now, we can focus on the concept of W3 by itself. The W3 by conception should be open, accessible to everyday. Accessibility (or A11y) to global information, is at its core. It implies a two way of access: the first is to get information, the second is to put information on the Web. So, the W3 became a huge network of information and a global way of expression of the human experience.

Tim Berners-Lee: From Information-Sharing between Scientists to the Digital Era of Humanity

The W3 was invented by Tim Berners-Lee in 1989 while he was working at CERN. The first concept of the Web was a way to meet the demand for automated information-sharing between scientists in universities and institues around the world. The first webpage in the human history was dedicated to the W3 project itself. On 1993, CERN put the W3 software in the public domain. Later, CERN made a release available with an open license. Thanks to CERN, the W3 flourished!

The picture below is the plaque in the corridor at CERN where the W3 was born. It starts with the following sentence: ‘In the offices of this corridor, all the fundamental technologies of the World Wide Web were developed’. Those fundamentals were the first web server, web browser, protocols and other technologies. However, perhaps the most important was the fundamental idea around the W3: global accessible networked, hyperlinked shared information. Than moment at CERN planted the seed for the new age of information and communications technology: The beginning of the Digital Era of Humanity.

The W3 started with technogies that already existed. It was the result of putting things together in a new level of abstraction, a process of re-imagining how things can fit together in a context of desperation for finding a way to share information. So, the Web is all about information, but to a global scale. It was born out of one specific necessity, but perhaps such necessity was a small sample of a human necessity by itself. Perhaps what the people at CERN experimented was in a nutshell, a global one. Thus, solving the case, solved the more general necessity.

‘Creating the web was really an act of desperation, because the situation without it was very difficult when I was working at CERN later. Most of the technology involved in the web, like the hypertext, like the Internet, multifont text objects, had all been designed already. I just had to put them together. It was a step of generalising, going to a higher level of abstraction, thinking about all the documentation systems out there as being possibly part of a larger imaginary documentation system.’

— Tim Berners-Lee

The Web as an Open Window ot Internode Communication

Illustration by Pixeliota on Unsplash

The W3 can be viewed as the connection of thousands nodes of information that can create, share, change, develop, transform or modify the state of the whole system of information. The W3 is, then, a global finite, partial system of information. As such, it becomes a space search, an open window to information. As I can now realize by writing this seed, some of the keywords to understand the the Web are: information, sharing, nodes, networks, hyperlinked information, open window to other worlds. Internode communications may be another way to describe this global network. Every window contribuites to the global network through setting and getting information from and to other nodes. Another different problems are those associated with information in relation with humans beings, ie, the problem of meaning, veracity, trustability, confidentiality, and in general, the quality of the information.

The Ever-Evolving Network

Finally, I would like to close this seed with a short reflection of the nature of the Web. In its core, the concept has been almost the same at a high level of abstraction: interconnected nodes of information. However, at another level, the Web has evolved, and we can expect that it will continue doing it. Nowadays, the W3 is full of applications for socialiting, doing buseness, create digital gardens like this one, researching and advancing science, and it almost a basic necessity of today’s human lifes.