100 Ideas That Changed the Web

217 Pages·2012·22.367 MB·English

by  Jim Boulton

100 IDEAS THAT
CHANGED THE WEB
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100 IDEAS THAT
CHANGED THE WEB
JimBoulton
LaurenceKingPublishing
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Introduction 6
100IdeasthatChangedtheWeb 8
FurtherReading 208
Index 210
PictureCredits 214
Acknowledgements 215
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No.1 THEMUNDANEUM 8 No.51 WEBMAIL 108
No.2 THESPACERACE 10 No.52 VIRALCONTENT 110
No.3 HYPERTEXT 12 No.53 INTERNETMEME 112
No.4 THEMODEM 14 No.54 THEDIGITALWALLET 114
No.5 GRAPHICALUSERINTERFACE 16 No.55 ECOMMERCE 116
No.6 THEMOUSE 18 No.56 COLLABORATIVEFILTERING 118
No.7 MARKUPLANGUAGE 20 No.57 THEDRUDGEREPORT 120
No.8 XANADU 22 No.58 RSSFEEDS 122
No.9 THEPERSONALCOMPUTER 24 No.59 WEBSTREAMING 124
No.10 THEINTERNET 26 No.60 THEINDEPENDENCEOFCYBERSPACE 126
No.11 INTERNETSERVICEPROVIDER 28 No.61 THEBLAIRWITCHPROJECT 128
No.12 BULLETINBOARDSYSTEMS 30 No.62 PEER-TO-PEER 130
No.13 HACKERS 32 No.63 BROADBAND 132
No.14 CYBERPUNK 34 No.64 CREATIVECOMMONS 134
No.15 INTERNETPROTOCOLSUITE 36 No.65 THEDOT-COMBUBBLE 136
No.16 DESKTOPPUBLISHING 38 No.66 WEBTV 138
No.17 HYPERCARD 40 No.67 THEWIKI 140
No.18 GRAPHICSINTERCHANGEFORMAT 42 No.68 INFOGRAPHICS 142
No.19 THEEMOTICON 44 No.69 AUGMENTEDREALITY 144
No.20 THEDOMAINNAMESYSTEM 46 No.70 CAPTCHA 146
No.21 THEPROJECT 48 No.71 PHOTOSHARING 148
No.22 WEBBROWSER 50 No.72 PODCAST 150
No.23 THECOOKIE 52 No.73 THELONGTAIL 152
No.24 THEJPEG 54 No.74 AJAX 154
No.25 PORNOGRAPHY 56 No.75 SOCIALNETWORKING 156
No.26 SEARCH 58 No.76 FOLKSONOMIES 158
No.27 WIFI 60 No.77 PERPETUALBETA 160
No.28 OPENSOURCE 62 No.78 ONLINEDATING 162
No.29 NETIQUETTE 64 No.79 SURROGATETRAVEL 164
No.30 APACHEWEBSERVER 66 No.80 CASUALGAMING 166
No.31 CONTENTMANAGEMENTSYSTEMS 68 No.81 MASHUP 168
No.32 WEBANALYTICS 70 No.82 YOUTUBE 170
No.33 MASSIVELYMULTI-PLAYERONLINEGAMING 72 No.83 MICROBLOGGING 172
No.34 WEBCAM 74 No.84 THEQRCODE 174
No.35 WEBSTANDARDS 76 No.85 REAL-TIMEREPORTING 176
No.36 GEOCITIES 78 No.86 THEMOBILEWEB 178
No.37 THEBANNERAD 80 No.87 USER-GENERATEDCONTENT 180
No.38 WEBAUCTION 82 No.88 AGGREGATION 182
No.39 USER-CENTREDDESIGN 84 No.89 THEAPPSTORE 184
No.40 NETART 86 No.90 CROWDSOURCING 186
No.41 DIGITALFRAGILITY 88 No.91 GAMIFICATION 188
No.42 INFORMATIONARCHITECTURE 90 No.92 OPENARCHITECTURE 190
No.43 WEBCHAT 92 No.93 GEOLOCATION 192
No.44 CASCADINGSTYLESHEETS 94 No.94 THEINTERNETELECTION 194
No.45 METADATA 96 No.95 THECLOUD 196
No.46 THEWEBBYAWARDS 98 No.96 EMBEDDABLEFONTS 198
No.47 PAYPERCLICK 100 No.97 TABLETDEVICES 200
No.48 WEBMAPPING 102 No.98 RESPONSIVEWEBDESIGN 202
No.49 BLOGGING 104 No.99 BIGDATA 204
No.50 SCALEABLEVECTORGRAPHICS 106 No.100 THESEMANTICWEB 206
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Introduction
Thelast20yearshasseenthebirthandriseofthe therewouldbenoWeb.TheWebandtheinternet
Webatanastronomicalpace.Wehavewitnessed aretermsthatareoftenerroneouslyinterchanged,
the birth of the Information Age, equal in beforewegetanyfurther,perhapsnowisagood
magnitudetothetransitiontothemodernworld time to clarify the difference. The internet is a
from the Middle Ages. We do everything global system of interconnected computer
differently. Just as Gutenberg’s printing press networks. It is the infrastructure that carries
allowed the accumulated knowledge of the email, instant messaging, Voice over IP, network
humanracetoreacheverypersonwhocouldread, games,filetransferandtheWeb.TheWebisthe
theWebextendsthisknowledgetoeveryonewith most accessible component of the internet, an
accesstoacomputer. interlinkedsystemofhypertextdocuments.
This book is meant to be an accessible Ideas 21–53 deal with the Web’s infancy,
introduction to the history of the Web, but we introducingthebrowser,theJPEG,search,multi-
would not have the Web if it were not for the player gaming, the webcam, the banner ad, net
internet.Infact,wedon’tgettotheinventionof art,webmailandtheblog.Theseearlyyearswerea
theWorldWideWebuntilidea21,thepreceding timeofexperimentation,aDIYlandscapetypified
ideaslayitsfoundations.Sothisisnotonlyabook by the now-deleted GeoCities. It was a rich
of ideas that changed the Web, it also includes period of creative expression dominated by
thosethatledtoitscreation. nonconformists.Hackers,artists,andothermisfits
Whilethereisalotofcross-referencinginthe divedintotheunknownandchangedtheworld.
book, each essay stands alone. Much as Tim Tragically, evidence of this culturally significant
Berners-LeeenvisagedtheWeb,thereadercandip periodislargelylost.Thestoryofthefirstwebpage,
inandoutofthebookatwill,followingthelinks published in August 1991, is typical. It was
between ideas or reading chronologically from continually overwritten until March 1992. No
beginningtoend.Thechoiceisyours. copy of the original webpage, not even a
Our story starts and ends with a dream. In screenshot,exists.
1934,aBelgianbibliophiledreamtofatelescope Ideas 54–71 address the pre-social Web and
that could transmit electronic documents. In the birth of ecommerce. At the end of the last
1999, Tim Berners-Lee outlined his vision for a century, dot-com hysteria was in full force.
Semantic Web. An information space of an BroadbandarrivedandtheWebbegantoloseits
unimaginable amount of data, automatically original spirit. Brands entered cyberspace, as it
interrogated, processed and turned into wasthenknown.Websitesbecamemorepolished,
knowledge.Adreamthatisnowwithinourgrasp. recognizing the commercial demands of their
Inbetween,wehave98otherideas.Someare paymasters. The pivotal moment was the
revolutionary, like the peer-to-peer network. appearance of digital wallets, primarily PayPal.
Othersarehumble,liketheGIF.Allofthemhave Therewasareaction:JohnPerryBarlow,member
contributed to the world-changing phenomenon ofTheGratefulDead,declared‘theIndependence
thatistheWorldWideWeb. of Cyberspace’ and Shawn Fanning created the
Ideas 1–20 examine the precursors, those first peer-to-peer network. He called it Napster.
ideasthatledtothecreationoftheWeb.Without Then came the crash: those companies that
hypertext,themodem,theGraphicalUserInterface, survivednotonlyhaddeeppockets,theyhaduser-
the mouse, the PC and of course the internet, generated content at their heart. Amazon had
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customerreviews,eBayhaduser-drivenauctions, otherideas,othersweredismissedentirely.Sorry
Wikipediawasentirelywrittenandeditedbyits Shockwave,wehadsomegoodtimestogetherbut
users.EvenGooglehaduser-generatedlinks. itwasnevergoingtolast.AsfortheActiveDesktop,
With ideas 74–98, the Web came of age, you were interesting but in the end, just too
becomingdynamic,socialand,crucially,mobile. demanding.ThelesssaidaboutChatRoulettethe
In the early years of the Web, pages were built better.Itwasforresearchpurposes,honestly.
entirelyinHTML.Witheachclick,anewpagewas Whilewritingthisbook,itbecameapparent
loaded.Evenasmallchangetothepagemeantthe thatexploringthehistoryoftheWebisnotjusta
entirepagehadtoberefreshed.In2005,Google nostalgictripintoourrecentdigitalpastbutan
launchedGoogleMaps,whichbehavedmorelikea exploration of the very way we think and
softwareapplicationthanawebsite.Web2.0had communicate. Our thought processes are non-
arrivedandwithitcamethesocialWeb.Although linearanderraticbutthewaywemakesenseof
siteslikeBloggerandFriendsterhadstartedlong things and express ourselves is linear. Pioneers
beforehand, it was in 2006 that the social Web like Paul Otlet, Vannevar Bush, Theodor Nelson,
reallytookoff.Thatyear,Facebookopenedupto DouglasEngelbartandTimBerners-Leequestioned
everyone of 13 and older, Twitter was founded, this conviction. Their legacy is the World Wide
YouTube went mainstream, and aggregators like Web. A place that breaks down national and
Farksuddenlyhadthepowertotakeserversdown. culturalborders.Aplacethatblurstheboundaries
The launch of the iPhone in 2007 took the Web betweengeneratingandexchangingideas.Aplace
mobile, at least in Europe and the US, by this that has toppled regimes and created new
pointthenumberofpeopleinAsiaaccessingthe economic models. A place that has radically
Web via mobile phone exceeded the number changed the way we work, play, shop, socialize
browsing on a PC. Our most important device andotherwiseparticipateinsociety.Butaboveall,
becametheoneinourpocket.It’stheonescreen aplacethatisforeveryone.
thatcutsacrossourworkandleisuretime.It’sthe
firstscreenwelookatinthemorningandthelast
onewelookatatnight.
Withideas99and100welooktothefuture.
WhentheWebwasfirstconceived,itwasintended
to be more than an interconnected library of
information.Theultimateaimwasasystemthat
drew meaning from this information. In an
increasingly connected world, our ability to
capture and store data is staggering. When this
dataismarkedupwithcontextualinformation,it
becomesknowledgeandweareonestepcloserto
aWebthatthinks.TheSemanticWeb.
With only 100 ideas, there is not room for
everyinnovationthatshapedtheWeb.TheMother
of all Demos, Social Bookmarks, Bitcoin, Twitch
TV and the Hash Tag were incorporated within
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The idea of the internet
was born in Belgium
IDEA No1
THE MUNDANEUM
In1934,sixdecadesbeforethebirthoftheWeb,aBelgian
bibliophiledescribedhisvisionforatéléphotographie,an
electronictelescopewhichcouldtransmitanydocument
intheworldtoatelevisionscreen.
Paul Otlet loved libraries. In 1891 he Otlet described the Web six decades
metakindredspirit,fellowBelgianand aheadofitsinvention,evenpredicting
future Nobel Prize winner, Henri social networks with remarkable
La Fontaine. Together they conceived accuracy, expecting users to PaulOtlet,founderofthe
the Mundaneum, a comprehensive ‘participate,applaud,giveovationsand Mundaneumandcreator
collection of the world’s published sing in the chorus’. A true visionary, oftheUniversalDecimal
Classificationsystem.
knowledge, equal in ambition to the Otlet also foresaw the mobile
greatLibraryofAlexandria. revolution,writingin1906,‘Tomorrow,
By 1910, they had collected telephony will be wireless ... Everyone
thousands of books, newspapers, willcarry, inhisorherpocket,atiny
photographs, journals, posters and little handset that will be tuned with
postcards. Otlet called the collection theturnofascrewtothewavelength
the Réseau, a network of documents adoptedbyeachemittingcentre.’
connectedby‘links’detailedonindex Otlet died in 1944 with his life’s
cards.Morethanblindsignposts,these work in ruins, destroyed to make way
links indicated the relationships for an exhibition of Third Reich art.
betweendocuments,animplementation Following the war, he was almost
ofwhatwenowcalltheSemanticWeb. forgottenasAmericanpioneerssuchas
AstheMundaneumgrew,thisdegreeof VannevarBush,DouglasEngelbartand
annotation became unmanageable. Theodor (Ted) Nelson came to the
Otletputhismindtonewtechnologies foreground. It was not until W. Boyd
thatwouldovercomethelimitationsof RaywardpublishedOtlet’sbiographyin
paper-based records. In his 1935 book 1975thattheremarkableprescienceof
Monde, he describes ‘a machinery hisworkbecameapparent.
unaffected by distance which would TheMundaneummuseumopened
combineatthesametimeradio,X-rays, inMons,Belgium,in1998,andin2012,
cinemaandmicroscopicphotography.... Googleoffereditssupport,recognizing
Fromafaranyonewouldbeabletoread PaulOtletandHenriLaFontaineasits
any passage that would be projected spiritual forefathers. Vinton Cerf,
ontohisindividualscreen,thusinhis inventor of the internet, says it as it
armchair, anyone would be able to is: ‘The idea of the internet was born
contemplate the whole of creation or inBelgium.’
particularpartsofit.’
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‘A true visionary, Otlet also
foresaw the mobile revolution.’
VolunteersattheMundaneum
classifiedaround17million
publications.Theirworkhasbecome
knownastheIndexCardInternet.
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