History, evolution and future of the web
The internet was first created in the 1960s as the ARPANET Project by the U.S. Department of Defense's Advanced Research Projects Agency. ARPANET was the first network to use packet switching, which allowed data transmission to be broken up into smaller packets for more efficient routing.
In the 1980s, The Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) and Internet Protocol (IP) became the standard networking protocols, providing the foundation for the modern internet. This period saw the expansion of networks beyond academic and military institutions, with the creation of NSFNET (National Science Foundation Network) in the United States, which connected research and educational institutions.
The World Wide Web (WWW) was invented in 1989 by Sir Tim Berners-Lee.October 1990, Tim had written three fundamental technologies that to this day are still being used in the web.
These three technologies are:
The Markup Language this site is written in and throughout the web
It is an address that is unique, which helps identify each resource on the web. Also known as a URL
Allows for the retrieval of linked resources from across the web. Nowaways, https is more common as it provides more security for users
The invention of the WWW revolutionized the internet, making it accessible by the general public. It also popularized graphical interfaces to make it easier for non-technical users to navigate the internet.
In the 2000s, the internet saw the rise of platforms such as Wikipedia, Youtube, Facebook, Twitter, etc. transformed the web into a dynamic and participatory space. It allowed the web to be more interactive, and for users to collaborate and share information with each other with greater ease. In the 2010s, with the rise of smartphones, cloud computing became more prevalent as initial smartphones could not be as powerful as Personal Computers. Cloud computing gave users access to even greater amount of data and applications from anywhere with an internet connection. Amazon Web Service (AWS) and Google Docs are examples of cloud services.
So far we've had two stages of the web: Web 1.0 and Web 2.0. Web 1.0 was all about the fetching (obtaining) and reading of information. It was your typical html and css pages that people would build. Personal web pages were common, consisting of mainly static pages. Because of this, websites had little interactivity and were one way gateways of information. Information could only be served, but end users could not comment or interact with the content.
Then, came Web 2.0, also known as the Participative Social Web, was about reading, writing, creating, and interacting with the end user. There was a sudden shift in how Web pages were designed and used. It allowed creaters of user-generated content to build a community surrounding their works.
The internet is constantly undergoing rapid growth and transformation. We are currently seeing the rise of the Internet of Things (IoT) and of Artificial Intelligence (AI). IoT connects our everyday objects and devices together to the internet for data collection and automation. AI allows for more dynamic interactions between human and computer such as personal recommendations, personal assistants, and autonomous systems to enhance the internet experience.