The sole reason you are reading this right now is because twenty years ago today – on November 12, 1990 – the formal proposal for the creation of the World Wide Web was published.
Tim Berners-Lee and Robert Cailliau proposed to build a “Hypertext project” called “WorldWideWeb” (one word, also spelled as “W3”):
… as a “web” of “hypertext documents” to be viewed by “browsers” using a client–server architecture.
This proposal estimated that a read-only web would be developed within three months and that it would take six months to achieve “the creation of new links and new material by readers, [so that] authorship becomes universal” as well as “the automatic notification of a reader when new material of interest to him/her has become available.”
The vast majority of the Internet interconnects nowadays using the HTTP protocol to display and interact with web sites.
Although the use of the term “WorldWideWeb” has been phased out for the shorter “Web”, one cannot but be grateful to these great minds that created the technical papers and the infrastructure that connects billions of people to information around the world – with just a few keystrokes and clicks.
Happy 20th Birthday, WWW!
Not sure why that 100% logo is there – we all know that it was the Domain Lord who did this through Father Domainicus.
Jeff – Twenty years ago, Father Domainicus was not ordained; he was merely a beekeeper in South Carolina.
Pretty cool! Quick everybody email Al Gore and and thank him!
Happy 20th www.
What would we do without you!