By Casey Frye, CCNN Writer
Everyone reading this, get ready to tip your hats in celebration, because the World Wide Web’s 25th birthday is coming up this Wednesday. It’s a relatively young technology, but the Web has managed to impact just about every aspect of our life and will probably continue to do so for a very long time.
Though the word ‘internet’ is often used in place of the Web, there are important differences between the two to keep in mind. The internet is simply a network of networks connected together – after all, the name comes from interconnected network. The World Wide Web, on the other hand, allows individuals a way to view the internet over many computer systems in a neat browser.
The idea for this user-friendly global connection first came from European computer scientist, Tim Berners-Lee, 25 years ago this coming Wednesday. He released a scientific paper on March 12, 1989 outlining how his World Wide Web could be used to access linked computers with the ease of a mouse click. Believe it or not, it was considered a silly idea at the time!
However, Berners-Lee showed his colleagues how useful the Web could be when he compiled a virtual phone book online, and soon the idea picked up momentum. According to a recent study, about 87% of American have access to the internet today. That’s a huge jump from the few 14% of Americans in 1995!
Google and Facebook are working hard to spread internet across the globe, so its quite possible to expect 100% of the world to be on the internet in the next 10 years or so. Happy Birthday World Wide Web!
Images courtesy of algogenius on Flickr.