History of the World Wide Web

It all started as a dream. In 1989, physics researcher Tim Berners-Lee envisioned a revolutionary
information-sharing system for computer networks that he felt might foster communication in the highenergy physics community.
Berners-Lee wrote up a proposal, entitled "Hypertext and CERN" (CERN is an acronym for the Conseil
Europeen pour la Recherch Nucleaire or the European Nuclear Research Council). Berners-Lee
circulated this proposal amongst his peers, generating much excitement.
The proposal contained three provisions:
1. The information-sharing system must be universally accessible to anyone connected to the
computer network, regardless of computer platform;
2. The information-sharing system must have a consistent user interface that would look and
behave in the same fashion no matter how it was accessed; and
3. The information-sharing system must allow links between documents, forming a web of
relationships between text, graphics, sound, and video.
The third provision was greeted with the most enthusiasm. Many of Berners-Lee's colleagues literally
drooled over the idea of a system that would allow them to read a research paper, point at a reference to
another document or image, and have it immediately delivered to their computer screen.
In March of 1991, Berners-Lee's vision became reality. The information-sharing system, newly
rechristened as the "World Wide Web," was made available to the physics community through a CERN
computer. Because it "served" up batches of cross-referenced documents specially formatted for this web
like information-sharing system, the physicists called this type of machine a "Web server."
Virtually any computer attached to the CERN Web server could access the documents contained therein.
To obtain one such document while working from a remote computer, a user needed only to fire up a
special program the CERN physicists called a "Web browser" and type the name of the document he or
she wished to read. The Web server would then transfer the file to the remote computer through a
network of cables.
If this user spotted a cross-reference (called a "link") to another document, he or she could simply tap a
simple sequence of keystrokes to have that document quickly delivered to his or her computer.

Text-based Web browser.

The blue words contain links to other documents.

In January of 1992, the World Wide Web was made available to the public via the Internet--the world's
largest computer network. By the end of 1992, there were 50 Web servers in operation worldwide. Most of
these machines were housed on university campuses.
Then, in early 1993, a University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign undergrad named Marc Andreessen
developed a new interface to the World Wide Web that he called the Mosaic Browser.
Mosaic, with a look and feel swiped from the Apple Macintosh and Microsoft Windows operating systems,
offered a clean, mouse-based graphical interface which allowed people to access World Wide Web
documents with little more than a point and a click.
The New York Times called Mosaic the "killer app of the Internet," and its ease of use fueled some fairly
explosive growth. By the end of 1993, the number of Web servers jumped to 623.
In 1994, Andreessen teamed up with Silicon Graphics chair Jim Clark to form Netscape Communications
Corporation. Because the University of Illinois owned the rights to Mosaic, Andreessen and Clark
immediately began marketing their Netscape Navigator, a commercial version of the Mosaic Browser.
Mosaic was later sold to Spry Corporation. Spry was then acquired by CompuServe which was then
acquired by WorldCom. WorldCom gave Mosaic back to the University of Illinois, retained the rest of
CompuServes infrastructure, merged with MCI, and sold the CompuServe customer roster to a small
service provider named America Online. Whew!
By June of 1994, the number of web servers had more than quadrupled to 2,738. Six months later, the
number of Web servers almost quadrupled again, to 10,022. At the same time, the Netscape Navigator
became the Web browser of choice. Its reputation for speed and ease of use allowed Netscape to capture
over 90% of the Web browser market.
Andreessen, giddy with the phenomenal success of his browser, began predicting the imminent demise of
traditional software companies like Microsoft Corporation. Andreessen firmly believed that computer users
would eventually use his browser and the World Wide Web to obtain all the information, entertainment,
and information processing power they needed.
Andreessen felt that his browser would make it possible for people to avoid purchasing, installing, and
upgrading operating systems, word processors, spreadsheets, databases, games, encyclopedias, and
other applications from software stores.
Instead, Andreessen reasoned that people would be able to obtain whatever they needed simply by
clicking links in the browser window. He believed that all anyone would ever need in the not-too-distant
future would be a computer, Internet access, and the Netscape browser. Popular products like Windows,
Word, Excel, and Quicken would no longer be necessary.
Andreessens bold proclamations did not go unnoticed at Microsoft headquarters in Redmond,
Washington. Microsoft CEO Bill Gates understood one point clearly: the company that owned the browser
market would have an incredible amount of influence over the way people could use the World Wide Web.
Andreessens words were alarming, and Gates felt uneasy with Netscape's overwhelming dominance in
the browser arena.
In an effort to provide an alternative to Netscape, Microsoft quickly readied a new World Wide Web
browser they called the Internet Explorer. Adopting a familiar strategy, Microsoft began to give the Internet
Explorer browser to all takers at no cost.
By 1998, Microsoft was including a free copy of the Internet Explorer with every copy of Windows. Since
most new computers come pre-installed with Windows, the Internet Explorer was effectively included as
standard equipment on almost every new machine sold since late 1998.
An agreement and financial arrangement with Apple ensured that the Internet Explorer would be included
on every new Macintosh computer, as well.

The timing couldn't have been more devastating to Netscape. With Mosaic languishing at the University of
Illinois, Netscape had no real competition and a commanding share of the market. Netscape had just
started charging users for the use of the Navigator browser, and the company was poised to turn its first
profit. But then Microsoft showed up with an alternative browser. In a desperate effort to retain market
share, Netscape was forced to give away its flagship product, prolonging the financial loss.
Microsoft's pockets were deeper than Netscape's, and it didn't take long for the Microsoft browser to seize
control of the World Wide Web. By 2000, the Microsoft browser had an 80% share of the browser market.
The Netscape Corporation, a shell of its former self, was eventually acquired by America Online. After
years of losing market share, the Netscape browser was finally discontinued on February 1, 2008.
Today, a little more than 75% of Internet users rely on the Internet Explorer to browse the World Wide
Web. But Microsoft has some competition. A new browser known as Firefox is currently the world's
second most popular browser, with a 17% market share. And Apple's new Safari browser takes third, with
a 6% share of the market.
The World Wide Web's rapid rate of growth did not go unnoticed by the Web's proud parents. BernersLee and other CERN researchers decided to form an international organization to guide World Wide Web
development.
This organization, known as the World Wide Web Consortium, is responsible for determining the World
Wide Web's evolution by setting all of its technical standards. The most up-to-date information on
emerging World Wide Web standards can be found at the Consortium's web site. To visit this site, fire up
your World Wide Web browser and enter the Consortium's Web Server address, also known as a Uniform
Resource Locator, or URL:
http://www.w3.org
Web Servers for Everyone
The commercialization of the World Wide Web began in 1995. Large corporations like AT&T, Digital
Equipment Corporation, IBM, MCI, Novell, and Sun Microsystems set up Web servers to provide
information and marketing information to anyone with a computer, Internet access, and a Web browser.
At first, Web servers were exclusively used by the wealthy, the powerful, or the technologically gifted. This
was primarily due to the fact that Web servers were expensive and notoriously difficult to set up and
maintain.
Sensing an opportunity, a few computer-savvy entrepreneurs began setting up Web servers and renting
out space at affordable prices. Some even began to give away space for free in exchange for the right to
sell ad space on any pages the user develops. Because they acted as electronic "hosts" for guest users,
these servers became known as Web hosts.
Today, almost anybody can obtain space on a Web host. Pages from Fortune 500 companies and
massive government agencies rub shoulders on the World Wide Web with pages created by ten-year old
child prodigies and tiny, one-person businesses.
At this time, 500,000 Web servers, each containing hundreds or thousands of documents known as Web
pages, are estimated to be in operation.
How the Web Works
The World Wide Web allows users to share information according to a client-server model for computer
networks.
A client is a computer that connects to the Internet for the express purpose of obtaining information from
another computer.

A server is a computer designed to provide information to other computers across a network like the
Internet.
When a World Wide Web user wishes to view a document:
1. The user requests the information through a browser that has been installed on the client
computer;
2. The request travels across the network to the server;
3. The server interprets the request and assembles the desired information; and
4. The server sends the information back to the client computer for display within the browser.

The information delivered to the client computer does not have to be linear (as in a book with a beginning,
middle, and end). Instead, each page of information made available for distribution on the World Wide
Web can contain words that create a link to another page.
Text that allows users to link to other sources of information is known as hypertext.
Theoretically, every page on the World Wide Web could have a link from or to every other page on the
Web. This open, dynamic web of interrelationships can extend not only from one Web page to another,
but from one Web server to another.
In order to ensure consistency, all documents which are made available over the World Wide Web must
be written in a language (defined by the World Wide Web Consortium) known as the Hypertext Markup
Language, or HTML.
In order to guarantee that any document written in HTML can be viewed by any browser installed on any
computer platform, HTML has been defined as a markup language, a language which merely describes
the document's structure instead of its appearance.