CIRCA:A General WWW History

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(Ted Nelson's A File Structure for the Complex, the Changing, and the Indeterminate and Project Xanadu)
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Based on a presentation by Domini Gee ([http://prezi.com/swkktbej2qol/www-presentation-take-2/ Prezi presentation])<br />
Based on a presentation by Domini Gee ([http://prezi.com/swkktbej2qol/www-presentation-take-2/ Prezi presentation])<br />
-
A general history of the WWW spanning from pre-invention to 2001. <br />
+
A general history of the WWW. <br />
===What is the World Wide Web?===
===What is the World Wide Web?===
Line 27: Line 27:
A year after Bush's article, Murray Leinster released a ''A Logic Named Joe''. Leinster's short story depicted a world where every home has a logic (aka a computer terminal) with the potential for massive networking and dissemination of information but also for the drawbacks of information explosion.
A year after Bush's article, Murray Leinster released a ''A Logic Named Joe''. Leinster's short story depicted a world where every home has a logic (aka a computer terminal) with the potential for massive networking and dissemination of information but also for the drawbacks of information explosion.
-
=Rise of Hypertext Execution=
+
=Execution of Hypertext =
-
== Ted Nelson's ''A File Structure for the Complex, the Changing, and the Indeterminate'' and Project Xanadu ==
+
== [http://www.w3.org/Xanadu.html#Nelson Ted Nelson]'s ''A File Structure for the Complex, the Changing, and the Indeterminate'' and Project Xanadu==
-
In 1965, Ted Nelson coined the term 'hypertext' to refer to non-sequential writing - text that branches and allows choices to the read.
+
Ted Nelson attempted one of the first hypertext projects, known as project Xanadu. He started Xanadu in 1960 with intention of creating a machine that could store and display different versions. Xanadu wasn't released until 1998 (and was incomplete) but the ideas inspired others and were the basis behind Nelson's hypertext theories.
-
== Douglas Engelbart's ''Mother of All Demos'' ==
+
Ted Nelson coined the term 'hypertext' in his 1965 paper to refer to non-sequential writing - text that branches and allows choices to read.
-
== Apple's Hypercard ==
+
== Douglas Engelbart's [http://sloan.stanford.edu/MouseSite/1968Demo.html ''Mother of All Demos'']==
 +
 
 +
Engelbart developed a hypertext system for browsing and edition information, in the process creating the computer mouse, in 1962. However, it wasn't until 1968 that these technologies were demonstrated to the public.
 +
 
 +
The demonstration was retroactively given the name the Mother of All Demos. It introduced many technologies common now, including the computer mouse, video conferencing, teleconferencing, hypertext, word processing, hypermedia, object addressing and dynamic file linking, bootstrapping, and a collaborative real-time editor. However, it would be a while before all these possibilities would become accessible to the public.
 +
 
 +
== Apple's [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HyperCard ''Hypercard '']==
 +
 
 +
In 1987, Apple released the Hypercard. Hypercard was one of the first successful hypermedia devices that combined database with a graphical, flexible, user-modifiable interface. It was an almost instant hit and popularized the idea of hypertext to a large base of users.
=The Invention of the Web=
=The Invention of the Web=
-
=Rapid Growth of the Web=
+
==[http://www.w3.org/Proposal.html Proposal]==
 +
 
 +
Up to the invention date of the Web, the internet and hypertext/hypermedia ideas and technologies had been developing and spreading but they'd been developing largely separate from each other. Tim Berners-Lee and Robert Robert Cailliau were among the first to combine the internet and hypertext together.
 +
 
 +
Berners-Lee first proposed the Web in 1989 at a CERN conference as a large hypertext database connected by links. In 1990, he put together a revised proposal with Cailliau that described hypertext as a way to link and access information of various kinds as a web of nodes in which he user could browse at will. Rather than attempting to store all the data in a single database Berners-Lee and Cailliau came up with a method that could allows users to navigate and add onto data.
 +
 
 +
==Tools==
 +
 
 +
By December 1990, the two finished building the tools needed for a working web:
 +
*HTML (HyperText Markup Language): The Publishing Language.
 +
*HTTP (HyperText Transfer Protocol): The application protocol for distribution collaborative, hypermedia information systems.
 +
*UDI/URL (Universal Document Identifier/Uniform Resource Locator): A system of globally unique identifiers.
 +
*Browser: Navigation display
 +
*Web server: To host websites.
 +
 
 +
The first three - HTML, HTTP, and URL - have proven to be essential technologies to the Web and are still in use. The first web browser however, the World Web Web, is no longer in use.
 +
 
 +
=Rapid Growth=
 +
 
 +
The Web was introduced to the public on August 6, 1991. There was only one web server, one web browser, little to no images, one graphical browser exclusive to the most powerful computers, and a few webpages on the CERN server at the start. However, interest and accessibility flourished.
 +
 
 +
==Web servers and pages==
 +
 
 +
Throughout 1991, web servers appeared in several institutions across Europe and the first server outside Europe was installed in December 1991. In November 1992 there were twenty six servers and the number jumped to over two hundred known web servers by October 1993.
 +
 
 +
During the same time, web sites went from fifty in 1992 to one hundred and fifty in 1993. By 2001, there were over twenty million web sites.
 +
 
 +
==Browsers==
 +
 
 +
The first graphical web browser was built for CERN's [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NeXT_Computer NeXT] computer, which were more powerful than what the general public had access to. Within a few years there were alternatives: the ViolaWWW [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ViolaWWW] was the first to offer a popular and accessible alternative and [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mosaic_(web_browser) Mosaic] popularized the World Wide Web and several more have developed since then.
 +
 
 +
==Organization of the Web==
 +
 
 +
In April 1993, CERN announced that anyone could use the web protocol and code royalty-free. In 1994, Cailliau organized the first World Wide Web conference and Berners-Lee created the World Wide Web Consortium.
 +
 
 +
These steps were done to keep the Web accessible and royalty and patent free while maintaining the Web's standards and quality.
=References=
=References=
 +
 +
Based on a presentation by Domini Gee ([http://prezi.com/swkktbej2qol/www-presentation-take-2/ Prezi presentation])<br />
 +
 +
A general history of the WWW. <br />
 +
 +
===What is the World Wide Web?===
 +
 +
The WWW is an information retrieval internet service that allows navigation between interlinked hypertext and hypermedia documents.
 +
 +
=Conceptual Hypertext Roots=
 +
 +
==[http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/17/science/17mund.html?_r=2&th&emc=th&oref=slogin Paul Otlet]'s ''Monde'' ==
 +
 +
In 1895, with help of Henri La Fontaine, Paul Otlet set out to create a master bibliography of all the world’s published knowledge. They collected books, journal articles, photographs, posters, etc. and created a vast paper database of over twelve million individual entries. However, the sheer amount of information (not to mention choking amounts of paper) made traditional means impractical. He started sketching out ideas in the 1920s to manage the information but realized the solution was to get replace paper with electronic storage.
 +
 +
Otlet's 1934 book, ''Monde'', outlined his "vision of a 'mechanical, collective brain' that would house all the world’s information, made readily accessible over a global telecommunications network" (Wright, 2008). Through a network of computers, users would have been able to browse through interlinked documents, images, audio, and video files. Users would also have been able to send, share, or receive files or even congregate online.
 +
 +
Unfortunately, before Otlet's vision could become concrete the government cut the project's funding. A small number of staff continued to work on the project until the Nazi invasion. The Nazis cleared out thousands of boxes of index cards for a Third Reich Art exhibition, destroying much of Otlet's work.
 +
 +
==Vannevar Bush's [http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1945/07/as-we-may-think/303881/# '' As We May Think'']==
 +
 +
In 1945, Vannevar Bush wrote ''As We May Think'', one of the most often cited, if not the earliest, roots of hypertext. Bush describes the Memex as a “mechanized private file and library, […] mechanized so that it may be consulted with exceeding speed and flexibility” (Bush, 1945). The Memex was never built but it was intended to be a photo-electrical-mechanical device which could make and follow links between documents on microfiche.
 +
 +
Bush conceived the Memex as a way to make accessible the bewildering amount of knowledge. The Memex would imitate the human mind, capable of linking nonlinear ideas through a web of associations more quickly and efficiently than traditional hierarchical methods.
 +
 +
===Murray Leinster’s [http://www.baen.com/chapters/W200506/0743499107___2.htm ''A Logic Named Joe'']===
 +
 +
A year after Bush's article, Murray Leinster released a ''A Logic Named Joe''. Leinster's short story depicted a world where every home has a logic (aka a computer terminal) with the potential for massive networking and dissemination of information but also for the drawbacks of information explosion.
 +
 +
=Execution of Hypertext =
 +
 +
== [http://www.w3.org/Xanadu.html#Nelson Ted Nelson]'s ''A File Structure for the Complex, the Changing, and the Indeterminate'' and Project Xanadu==
 +
 +
Ted Nelson attempted one of the first hypertext projects, known as project Xanadu. He started Xanadu in 1960 with intention of creating a machine that could store and display different versions. Xanadu wasn't released until 1998 (and was incomplete) but the ideas inspired others and were the basis behind Nelson's hypertext theories.
 +
 +
Ted Nelson coined the term 'hypertext' in his 1965 paper to refer to non-sequential writing - text that branches and allows choices to read.
 +
 +
== Douglas Engelbart's [http://sloan.stanford.edu/MouseSite/1968Demo.html ''Mother of All Demos'']==
 +
 +
Engelbart developed a hypertext system for browsing and edition information, in the process creating the computer mouse, in 1962. However, it wasn't until 1968 that these technologies were demonstrated to the public.
 +
 +
The demonstration was retroactively given the name the Mother of All Demos. It introduced many technologies common now, including the computer mouse, video conferencing, teleconferencing, hypertext, word processing, hypermedia, object addressing and dynamic file linking, bootstrapping, and a collaborative real-time editor. However, it would be a while before all these possibilities would become accessible to the public.
 +
 +
== Apple's [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HyperCard ''Hypercard '']==
 +
 +
In 1987, Apple released the Hypercard. Hypercard was one of the first successful hypermedia devices that combined database with a graphical, flexible, user-modifiable interface. It was an almost instant hit and popularized the idea of hypertext to a large base of users.
 +
 +
=The Invention of the Web=
 +
 +
==[http://www.w3.org/Proposal.html Proposal]==
 +
 +
Up to the invention date of the Web, the internet and hypertext/hypermedia ideas and technologies had been developing and spreading but they'd been developing largely separate from each other. Tim Berners-Lee and Robert Robert Cailliau were among the first to combine the internet and hypertext together.
 +
 +
Berners-Lee first proposed the Web in 1989 at a CERN conference as a large hypertext database connected by links. In 1990, he put together a revised proposal with Cailliau that described hypertext as a way to link and access information of various kinds as a web of nodes in which he user could browse at will. Rather than attempting to store all the data in a single database Berners-Lee and Cailliau came up with a method that could allows users to navigate and add onto data.
 +
 +
==Tools==
 +
 +
By December 1990, the two finished building the tools needed for a working web:
 +
*HTML (HyperText Markup Language): The Publishing Language.
 +
*HTTP (HyperText Transfer Protocol): The application protocol for distribution collaborative, hypermedia information systems.
 +
*UDI/URL (Universal Document Identifier/Uniform Resource Locator): A system of globally unique identifiers.
 +
*Browser: Navigation display
 +
*Web server: To host websites.
 +
 +
The first three - HTML, HTTP, and URL - have proven to be essential technologies to the Web and are still in use. The first web browser however, the World Web Web, is no longer in use.
 +
 +
=Rapid Growth=
 +
 +
The Web was introduced to the public on August 6, 1991. There was only one web server, one web browser, little to no images, one graphical browser exclusive to the most powerful computers, and a few webpages on the CERN server at the start. However, interest and accessibility flourished.
 +
 +
==Web servers and pages==
 +
 +
Throughout 1991, web servers appeared in several institutions across Europe and the first server outside Europe was installed in December 1991. In November 1992 there were twenty six servers and the number jumped to over two hundred known web servers by October 1993.
 +
 +
During the same time, web sites went from fifty in 1992 to one hundred and fifty in 1993. By 2001, there were over twenty million web sites.
 +
 +
==Browsers==
 +
 +
The first graphical web browser was built for CERN's [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NeXT_Computer NeXT] computer, which were more powerful than what the general public had access to. Within a few years there were alternatives: the ViolaWWW [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ViolaWWW] was the first to offer a popular and accessible alternative and [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mosaic_(web_browser) Mosaic] popularized the World Wide Web and several more have developed since then.
 +
 +
==Organization of the Web==
 +
 +
In April 1993, CERN announced that anyone could use the web protocol and code royalty-free. In 1994, Cailliau organized the first World Wide Web conference and Berners-Lee created the World Wide Web Consortium.
 +
 +
These steps were done to keep the Web accessible and royalty and patent free while maintaining the Web's standards and quality.
 +
 +
=References=
 +
 +
World Wide Web Consortium: http://www.w3.org/Proposal.html,
 +
http://www.w3.org/History/1989/proposal.html 
 +
http://www.w3.org/2004/Talks/w3c10-HowItAllStarted/?toc=true,
 +
http://www.w3.org/History/19921103-hypertext/hypertext/WWW/TheProject.html
 +
http://info.cern.ch/
 +
 +
Lenny Zeltser: http://zeltser.com/web-history/
 +
Gregory Gromov: http://www.netvalley.com/history_of_internet.html#9
 +
Alex Wright: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/17/science/17mund.html?_r=3&th&emc=th&oref=slogin
 +
 +
Wikis: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Wide_Web
 +
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_World_Wide_Web
 +
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mother_of_All_Demos
 +
http://circa.cs.ualberta.ca/index.php/CIRCA:WWW
 +
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NeXT_Computer
 +
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ViolaWWW
 +
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mosaic_(web_browser)

Revision as of 03:15, 23 October 2012

Based on a presentation by Domini Gee (Prezi presentation)

A general history of the WWW.

Contents

What is the World Wide Web?

The WWW is an information retrieval internet service that allows navigation between interlinked hypertext and hypermedia documents.

Conceptual Hypertext Roots

Paul Otlet's Monde

In 1895, with help of Henri La Fontaine, Paul Otlet set out to create a master bibliography of all the world’s published knowledge. They collected books, journal articles, photographs, posters, etc. and created a vast paper database of over twelve million individual entries. However, the sheer amount of information (not to mention choking amounts of paper) made traditional means impractical. He started sketching out ideas in the 1920s to manage the information but realized the solution was to get replace paper with electronic storage.

Otlet's 1934 book, Monde, outlined his "vision of a 'mechanical, collective brain' that would house all the world’s information, made readily accessible over a global telecommunications network" (Wright, 2008). Through a network of computers, users would have been able to browse through interlinked documents, images, audio, and video files. Users would also have been able to send, share, or receive files or even congregate online.

Unfortunately, before Otlet's vision could become concrete the government cut the project's funding. A small number of staff continued to work on the project until the Nazi invasion. The Nazis cleared out thousands of boxes of index cards for a Third Reich Art exhibition, destroying much of Otlet's work.

Vannevar Bush's As We May Think

In 1945, Vannevar Bush wrote As We May Think, one of the most often cited, if not the earliest, roots of hypertext. Bush describes the Memex as a “mechanized private file and library, […] mechanized so that it may be consulted with exceeding speed and flexibility” (Bush, 1945). The Memex was never built but it was intended to be a photo-electrical-mechanical device which could make and follow links between documents on microfiche.

Bush conceived the Memex as a way to make accessible the bewildering amount of knowledge. The Memex would imitate the human mind, capable of linking nonlinear ideas through a web of associations more quickly and efficiently than traditional hierarchical methods.

Murray Leinster’s A Logic Named Joe

A year after Bush's article, Murray Leinster released a A Logic Named Joe. Leinster's short story depicted a world where every home has a logic (aka a computer terminal) with the potential for massive networking and dissemination of information but also for the drawbacks of information explosion.

Execution of Hypertext

Ted Nelson's A File Structure for the Complex, the Changing, and the Indeterminate and Project Xanadu

Ted Nelson attempted one of the first hypertext projects, known as project Xanadu. He started Xanadu in 1960 with intention of creating a machine that could store and display different versions. Xanadu wasn't released until 1998 (and was incomplete) but the ideas inspired others and were the basis behind Nelson's hypertext theories.

Ted Nelson coined the term 'hypertext' in his 1965 paper to refer to non-sequential writing - text that branches and allows choices to read.

Douglas Engelbart's Mother of All Demos

Engelbart developed a hypertext system for browsing and edition information, in the process creating the computer mouse, in 1962. However, it wasn't until 1968 that these technologies were demonstrated to the public.

The demonstration was retroactively given the name the Mother of All Demos. It introduced many technologies common now, including the computer mouse, video conferencing, teleconferencing, hypertext, word processing, hypermedia, object addressing and dynamic file linking, bootstrapping, and a collaborative real-time editor. However, it would be a while before all these possibilities would become accessible to the public.

Apple's Hypercard

In 1987, Apple released the Hypercard. Hypercard was one of the first successful hypermedia devices that combined database with a graphical, flexible, user-modifiable interface. It was an almost instant hit and popularized the idea of hypertext to a large base of users.

The Invention of the Web

Proposal

Up to the invention date of the Web, the internet and hypertext/hypermedia ideas and technologies had been developing and spreading but they'd been developing largely separate from each other. Tim Berners-Lee and Robert Robert Cailliau were among the first to combine the internet and hypertext together.

Berners-Lee first proposed the Web in 1989 at a CERN conference as a large hypertext database connected by links. In 1990, he put together a revised proposal with Cailliau that described hypertext as a way to link and access information of various kinds as a web of nodes in which he user could browse at will. Rather than attempting to store all the data in a single database Berners-Lee and Cailliau came up with a method that could allows users to navigate and add onto data.

Tools

By December 1990, the two finished building the tools needed for a working web:

  • HTML (HyperText Markup Language): The Publishing Language.
  • HTTP (HyperText Transfer Protocol): The application protocol for distribution collaborative, hypermedia information systems.
  • UDI/URL (Universal Document Identifier/Uniform Resource Locator): A system of globally unique identifiers.
  • Browser: Navigation display
  • Web server: To host websites.

The first three - HTML, HTTP, and URL - have proven to be essential technologies to the Web and are still in use. The first web browser however, the World Web Web, is no longer in use.

Rapid Growth

The Web was introduced to the public on August 6, 1991. There was only one web server, one web browser, little to no images, one graphical browser exclusive to the most powerful computers, and a few webpages on the CERN server at the start. However, interest and accessibility flourished.

Web servers and pages

Throughout 1991, web servers appeared in several institutions across Europe and the first server outside Europe was installed in December 1991. In November 1992 there were twenty six servers and the number jumped to over two hundred known web servers by October 1993.

During the same time, web sites went from fifty in 1992 to one hundred and fifty in 1993. By 2001, there were over twenty million web sites.

Browsers

The first graphical web browser was built for CERN's NeXT computer, which were more powerful than what the general public had access to. Within a few years there were alternatives: the ViolaWWW [1] was the first to offer a popular and accessible alternative and Mosaic popularized the World Wide Web and several more have developed since then.

Organization of the Web

In April 1993, CERN announced that anyone could use the web protocol and code royalty-free. In 1994, Cailliau organized the first World Wide Web conference and Berners-Lee created the World Wide Web Consortium.

These steps were done to keep the Web accessible and royalty and patent free while maintaining the Web's standards and quality.

References

Based on a presentation by Domini Gee (Prezi presentation)

A general history of the WWW.

What is the World Wide Web?

The WWW is an information retrieval internet service that allows navigation between interlinked hypertext and hypermedia documents.

Conceptual Hypertext Roots

Paul Otlet's Monde

In 1895, with help of Henri La Fontaine, Paul Otlet set out to create a master bibliography of all the world’s published knowledge. They collected books, journal articles, photographs, posters, etc. and created a vast paper database of over twelve million individual entries. However, the sheer amount of information (not to mention choking amounts of paper) made traditional means impractical. He started sketching out ideas in the 1920s to manage the information but realized the solution was to get replace paper with electronic storage.

Otlet's 1934 book, Monde, outlined his "vision of a 'mechanical, collective brain' that would house all the world’s information, made readily accessible over a global telecommunications network" (Wright, 2008). Through a network of computers, users would have been able to browse through interlinked documents, images, audio, and video files. Users would also have been able to send, share, or receive files or even congregate online.

Unfortunately, before Otlet's vision could become concrete the government cut the project's funding. A small number of staff continued to work on the project until the Nazi invasion. The Nazis cleared out thousands of boxes of index cards for a Third Reich Art exhibition, destroying much of Otlet's work.

Vannevar Bush's As We May Think

In 1945, Vannevar Bush wrote As We May Think, one of the most often cited, if not the earliest, roots of hypertext. Bush describes the Memex as a “mechanized private file and library, […] mechanized so that it may be consulted with exceeding speed and flexibility” (Bush, 1945). The Memex was never built but it was intended to be a photo-electrical-mechanical device which could make and follow links between documents on microfiche.

Bush conceived the Memex as a way to make accessible the bewildering amount of knowledge. The Memex would imitate the human mind, capable of linking nonlinear ideas through a web of associations more quickly and efficiently than traditional hierarchical methods.

Murray Leinster’s A Logic Named Joe

A year after Bush's article, Murray Leinster released a A Logic Named Joe. Leinster's short story depicted a world where every home has a logic (aka a computer terminal) with the potential for massive networking and dissemination of information but also for the drawbacks of information explosion.

Execution of Hypertext

Ted Nelson's A File Structure for the Complex, the Changing, and the Indeterminate and Project Xanadu

Ted Nelson attempted one of the first hypertext projects, known as project Xanadu. He started Xanadu in 1960 with intention of creating a machine that could store and display different versions. Xanadu wasn't released until 1998 (and was incomplete) but the ideas inspired others and were the basis behind Nelson's hypertext theories.

Ted Nelson coined the term 'hypertext' in his 1965 paper to refer to non-sequential writing - text that branches and allows choices to read.

Douglas Engelbart's Mother of All Demos

Engelbart developed a hypertext system for browsing and edition information, in the process creating the computer mouse, in 1962. However, it wasn't until 1968 that these technologies were demonstrated to the public.

The demonstration was retroactively given the name the Mother of All Demos. It introduced many technologies common now, including the computer mouse, video conferencing, teleconferencing, hypertext, word processing, hypermedia, object addressing and dynamic file linking, bootstrapping, and a collaborative real-time editor. However, it would be a while before all these possibilities would become accessible to the public.

Apple's Hypercard

In 1987, Apple released the Hypercard. Hypercard was one of the first successful hypermedia devices that combined database with a graphical, flexible, user-modifiable interface. It was an almost instant hit and popularized the idea of hypertext to a large base of users.

The Invention of the Web

Proposal

Up to the invention date of the Web, the internet and hypertext/hypermedia ideas and technologies had been developing and spreading but they'd been developing largely separate from each other. Tim Berners-Lee and Robert Robert Cailliau were among the first to combine the internet and hypertext together.

Berners-Lee first proposed the Web in 1989 at a CERN conference as a large hypertext database connected by links. In 1990, he put together a revised proposal with Cailliau that described hypertext as a way to link and access information of various kinds as a web of nodes in which he user could browse at will. Rather than attempting to store all the data in a single database Berners-Lee and Cailliau came up with a method that could allows users to navigate and add onto data.

Tools

By December 1990, the two finished building the tools needed for a working web:

  • HTML (HyperText Markup Language): The Publishing Language.
  • HTTP (HyperText Transfer Protocol): The application protocol for distribution collaborative, hypermedia information systems.
  • UDI/URL (Universal Document Identifier/Uniform Resource Locator): A system of globally unique identifiers.
  • Browser: Navigation display
  • Web server: To host websites.

The first three - HTML, HTTP, and URL - have proven to be essential technologies to the Web and are still in use. The first web browser however, the World Web Web, is no longer in use.

Rapid Growth

The Web was introduced to the public on August 6, 1991. There was only one web server, one web browser, little to no images, one graphical browser exclusive to the most powerful computers, and a few webpages on the CERN server at the start. However, interest and accessibility flourished.

Web servers and pages

Throughout 1991, web servers appeared in several institutions across Europe and the first server outside Europe was installed in December 1991. In November 1992 there were twenty six servers and the number jumped to over two hundred known web servers by October 1993.

During the same time, web sites went from fifty in 1992 to one hundred and fifty in 1993. By 2001, there were over twenty million web sites.

Browsers

The first graphical web browser was built for CERN's NeXT computer, which were more powerful than what the general public had access to. Within a few years there were alternatives: the ViolaWWW [2] was the first to offer a popular and accessible alternative and Mosaic popularized the World Wide Web and several more have developed since then.

Organization of the Web

In April 1993, CERN announced that anyone could use the web protocol and code royalty-free. In 1994, Cailliau organized the first World Wide Web conference and Berners-Lee created the World Wide Web Consortium.

These steps were done to keep the Web accessible and royalty and patent free while maintaining the Web's standards and quality.

References

World Wide Web Consortium: http://www.w3.org/Proposal.html, http://www.w3.org/History/1989/proposal.html http://www.w3.org/2004/Talks/w3c10-HowItAllStarted/?toc=true, http://www.w3.org/History/19921103-hypertext/hypertext/WWW/TheProject.html http://info.cern.ch/

Lenny Zeltser: http://zeltser.com/web-history/ Gregory Gromov: http://www.netvalley.com/history_of_internet.html#9 Alex Wright: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/17/science/17mund.html?_r=3&th&emc=th&oref=slogin

Wikis: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Wide_Web http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_World_Wide_Web http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mother_of_All_Demos http://circa.cs.ualberta.ca/index.php/CIRCA:WWW http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NeXT_Computer http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ViolaWWW http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mosaic_(web_browser)

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