In the past few weeks, I’ve reviewed a blog and 3 websites, and in the past have talked about security on your computer, what makes a good website good, and what trends are coming up for this year. But what about the technology itself? What is the Internet? Who builds and runs it?
What Is the Internet?
In a nutshell, the internet is the worlds largest network of computers and smaller networks all connected together. Just about every computing device nowadays is connected to this network, be it a company network, a desktop computer, or even a smart phone. So it’s basically a giant computer network. Essentially, every computer connected to the Internet can communicate with every other computer connected to the internet. By “computer” I’m referring to any device that can run apps and connect to a network of other computers, so that would include PCs, most modern gaming consoles, smart phones, and tablets, for example.
Who Builds and Runs the Internet?
The main organization responsible for setting the standards for the Internet is called World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). The individual who’s credited with inventing the Internet is Tim Berners-Lee, who is also the founder and current Director of the W3C.
World Wide Web Consortium (W3C)
The W3C is the main organization responsible for:
- Developing Internet technologies and standards
- Educating the public on Internet standards and technologies
- Provides a forum for discussing Internet standards and technologies
The W3C was founded in 1994 by Tim Berners-Lee at the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology Laboratory for Computer Science (MIT/LCS).
Tim Berners-Lee
He is credited for inventing the Internet and founding the W3C. He first developed and successfully tested the concept of using the language that would form today’s World Wide Web in1989. This language is called Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) and has gone through 5 major revisions since its creation. HTML is bascially what allows you to see a website with text of different colours, sizes, and fonts, have different colours in the background, see pictures on a website, videos, and all the other things that make a website look more interesting then black text on a white background, which was what the very first websites were.
Tim was born in London England in 1955 and went on to become a Computer Scientist, graduating from the University of Oxford in 1976 with a degree in Physics. His invention of the World Wide Web was based on earlier research he did back between 1980 and 1984 while working for CERN as an independent contractor, which resulted in a protytype system he called ENQUIRE, which was also based on the HTML language.
Jakob Nielsen: Another Key Player In the Internet
Jakob was born in 1957 in Denmark, where he earned a Ph.D. in human–computer interaction from the Technical University of Denmark.
His major contribution to the Internet is in the area of usability. He’s developed numerous methods for evaluating usability, including heuristic evaluation. He also outlined 5 key components of his Usability Goals, which are learnability, efficiency, memorability, errors (as few as possible), and satisfaction.
I hope this gives you a bit better understanding of what the Internet and World Wide Web are and how they came into being. If you want more info you can visit my sources at:
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jakob_Nielsen_%28usability_consultant%29
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Berners-Lee
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Wide_Web_Consortium
You can also visit the W3C site as well to find out more.
If you have any specific questions, or have any specific topics you would like me to cover, leave a comment below and let me know. The only way I can give you what you want is if you tell me what you want. It would also mean a lot to me to start hearing from you, my readers. I really do want to see your thoughts.
