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World Wide Web 30 years old today

by on12 March 2019
World Wide Web 30 years old today Image by Charles Ransom Miller from public archive of the NY times


Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band

When Tim Berners-Lee was 33 years old, he penned a letter to his bosses at CERN suggesting a common protocol for using the interweb that was intended to demolish the Tower of Babel and let people communicate with each other worldwide.

But today he told the BBC that the WWW needed to get “back on track”.

He could not have predicted in 1989 that his notion could have spawned the chaos that now faces people with giant mega-corporations like Facebook, Google and Twitter accused of perverting the noble idea.

On the bright side, without the idea you would not be able to read Fudzilla, use Google to find out how to replace broken spindles in your bannisters, find the origins of the word "awkward", or stream videos and view academic documents almost at will.

On the dark side, the WWW has compromised copyright laws worldwide, led to the downfall of paper newspapers and allows online news sites to ignore the basic principles of speeling (sic) and journalistic integrity.

On the other hand, without the WWW, British daily the Daily Telegraph couldn't have written this article about the top 50 most influential Brits in technology, with Tim Berners-Lee in pole position.  

 

Last modified on 12 March 2019
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