While we were all busily checking the web for the latest Olympics news and information on whether or not any extra tickets had been released, there will be few of us that will have stopped to think about how all these online facilities got here in the first place. August saw the 21st birthday of something that is now a fundamental part of the way we access information and communicate with others – the humble website.
Of course, that’s not to say that that the internet itself is only 21 years old, far from it. The technology used to host much of the content we see on a daily basis dates much further back and in its first iteration appeared way back in 1969. However, it was just over a couple of decades ago that Sir Tim Berners-Lee, who was then working as a scientist at CERN, decided to use this network to make the very first publicly available webpage. Not only was it a move that would revolutionise the future of retail, marketing, advertising, telecommunications and pretty much everything else besides, it was a rare moment in time where something that would truly change the world was given away by its creator for free - Sir Tim’s wonderful gift to the world.
It was this same sentiment of sharing that echoed around the globe during the highly praised Olympic opening ceremony this month too, as Sir Tim was revealed sat at a desk on the centre stage during the spectacular show. Live tweeting in front of the world’s cameras, he sent an online message that was projected onto the crowd for the millions watching to see. ‘This is for everyone’.
MEC Opinion: It’s very difficult to quantify just how important the internet now is to us all, as it has become such an integrated part of almost everything we do. Whether you are trawling Google images for hilarious ‘lolcat’ images to send to your friends, or are taking part in company and client meetings with people from all over the world, it’s clear that we simply couldn’t function in the same way if the World Wide Web was taken away from us at this point.
However, while the internet – and the web – may be here to stay, it will likely never stop evolving. In the 21 years since Sir Tim Berners Lee put up the world’s first site, we’ve seen a huge amount of innovation around what it can do. Web 1.0 gave people access to information and allowed them to communicate over a new and exciting space, before Web 2.0 came along and gave us new ways to socialise, share and see the world. We have yet to see where 3.0 and its successors will lead us, but it’s fair to say it will be an exciting place.
