The World Wide Web, also known as WWW, or simply the web, is a global medium that allows users to share information via computers, as long as they are connected to the Internet. World Wide Web was first introduced to the world by Tim Berners-Lee in 1989. Before he came up with this name, he also considered other names such as Information Mesh,the Information Mine, which abbreviates to TIM, and Mine of Information, which abbreviates to MOI (Moe, in French).

In 1990, Tim Berners-Lee introduced to the world the HyperText Transfer Protocol (HTTP), the HyperText Markup Language (HTML), the first Web Browser named WorldWideWeb, and many other tools to access the World Wide Web. The first International WWW conference was held in May 1994.

Between 1996 and 1998, a pub Web presence was no longer optional for many public traded companies. Starting from 2002, the idea of Weblogs and RSS rapidly gained acceptance on the Web. This model of information exchange, featuring DIY user-generated websites, was a blast and believed to fulfill Tim Berners-Lee's vision of the Semantic Web.

I have a dream for the Web [in which computers] become capable of analyzing all the data on the Web - the content, links, and transactions between people and computers. A Semantic Web', which should make this possible, has yet to emerge, but when it does, the day-to-day mechanisms of trade, bureaucracy and our daily lives will be handled by machines talking to machines. The intelligent agents' people have touted for ages will finally materialize. - Tim Berners-Lee, 1999

In 2005, 3 ex-PayPal employees formed YouTube, enhancing the idea of user-generated content with multimedia content - videos. In 2006, YouTube was proven the most quickly growing website in history. The World Wide Web has become the largest medium of information sharing. Because the World Wide Web has the potential to connect a very large audience, its potential to create opportunities is simply unbelievable. World Wide Web in Plain English:

Additional Reading

• Money vs. Purpose