The World Wide Web

1
The World Wide Web
2
Outline

• Brief History
• 7 Perceived Environments
• Technology Push
• Market Pull
• Type of Innovation

3
Brief History

• 1945 Vannevar Bushs Memex first hypertext
  concept
• 1960s Doug Englebart hypertext browsing and
  editing, invents mouse for this purpose Ted
  Nelson coins the word hypertext, went on to
  develop Xanadu
• 1980 Tim Berner-Lee at CERN (European
  Organization for Nuclear Research) program
  called ENQUIRE
• 1990 Tim Berner-Lee works on hypertext GUI
  browsereditor, calls it worldwideweb
• First web server nxoc01.cern.ch
• First web page http//nxoc01.cern.ch/hypertext/WW
  W/TheProject.html

4
Tim BLs WorldWideWeb program
5
Growth the of WWW

• 1991 CERN seminar on WWW
• 1992 CERN releases line mode browser as
  freeware followed by Erwise, Viola and Mida
• 1993 Marc Andreessen develops Mosaic, releases
  free versions for mac and windows
• 1993 CERN makes WWW technology freely available
  to anyone
• Later growth in academia, industry and consumer
  market

6
(No Transcript)
7
Designers Perceived Environments

• 1. Intrapsychic environment
• Tim BL combines the idea of hypertext and
  computer networks
• Motivation at CERN to share information more
  efficiently
• In 80s many types of incompatible computer
  systems, document formats etc different
  information had to be access in different ways

8

• 2. Construction/Manufacturing Environment
• Hardware The Internet already existed
• Software Backing from CERN to produce first
  browser and WWW standards HTML, HTTP, and URL
• 3. Adoption Environment
• The first three years were a phase of persuasion
  to get the web adopted Tim BL
• CERN held seminar on the WWW in 1991
• Released line mode browser platform
  independent freeware
• Made the WWW technology freely available to anyone

9

• 4. Use Environment
• The line mode browser did not have good
  usability
• CERN did not have resources to develop the
  browser, therefore encouraged other parties to
  work on this
• Andreessens Mosaic browser first browser with
  good usability
• 5. Failure Environment
• An important part of Software Eng
• Recovery from failure part of the HTTP protocol
• The Internet and the TCP/IP protocol were already
  established technologies

10

• 6. Scrapping Environment
• Hardware Will the Internet be dismantled?
• Software Part of W3Cs role is to maintain the
  WWW technology
• 7. Political/Ecological Environment
• Political barrier in China/North Korea due to
  freedom of speech problem, but not in the west.
• Danger of misuse supporting criminal or
  terrorist activities

11
Technology Push

• Charm WWW idea never been implemented before, a
  much more powerful tool for information sharing
  than existing solutions.
• Feasibility had backing from CERN, the internet
  already existed, designing the technology (HTTP,
  HTML) may have been difficult, but once designed,
  manufacturing is not an issue
• Belief market exists market already existed at
  CERN, maybe less belief for world market.

12
Market Pull

• CERNs efforts to generate market pull by
  spreading the word and make the technology free
• Market pull low at the beginning but has been
  increasing since
• From academia
• From consumer market
• From e-commerce
• Due to various reasons

13
Type of Innovation

• The initial WWW A Knights move?
• Had precursors in hypertext and computer
  networks, but combining the two is a wholly new
  idea
• Had the backing from CERN
• Still needed other parties to take it further
• However, the increase in bandwidth that allowed
  for dynamic content, music and animation to be
  incorporated, may be considered passing over of
  quantity into quality?

14
Conclusion

• Initial Technology push, and subsequent increased
  market pull contributed to the success of the
  WWW.
• Evolved from simple document pages to richer GUI
  environment offering many uses, but what about
  its future?
• Ubiquitous/pervasive computing the next step?
• Will the WWW end? be replaced by a knights move?