World Wide Web

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The World Wide Web is an exuberantly popular application of The Public Internet. So popular is the web that it is commonly confused with the Internet itself. This is not correct. The World Wide Web is only one application of internetworking protocols.

The World Wide Web is best described as a vast information storage and retrieval system which uses the HTTP (Hyper Text Transfer Protocol) send and receive information over the internetworking TCP/IP protocol. In human terms it is the medium in which web-pages (including this one) exist.

The World Wide Web is different from most other information storage and retrieval systems in that pages are directly connected by "hypertext links" which are expressed as URIs. Hypertext links like this one are a kind of in-line cross-reference to an external web-site.

The Web itself, while merely an application of an application of a protocol is increasingly being applied itself. Wikis are only one example of this. Web video on sites such as Youtube and Hulu are becoming increasingly popular. The World Wide Web is slowly transforming into a medium for much more than mere information. It is becoming an application-programming platform in its own right.

As with the rest of The Public Internet the U.S. Government exercises very little control over the Web, for now. Although efforts by the government to impinge upon this threatening new source of free speech are slowly being brought to bear the nature of the internetworking technology will make it very difficult to regulate.

Most World Wide Web technologies are mediated by the W3C or "World Wide Web Consortium". It is also affected with varying degrees of directness by the agencies governing Internet standards.

Categories: Internet

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