DailyPost 898
TIME TO DECIDE THE FUTURE OF WEB!
On the 30th birthday of the World Wide Web, it’s certainly a time to pause and ponder and analyse the direction of its journey, the most potent tool human being has ever created and formulate its future trajectory. What a single human being can do; WWW stands a living testimony. On the very same day on 1989, Sir Tim Berners-Lee at Europe’s CERN submitted a proposal Information Management – A Proposal, this was to be the birth of the World Wide Web.
What a visionary is all about, is ideally epitomised in Berners Lee. He envisioned to help his colleagues to share information at CERN, ”a large hypertext database with typed links,” named ”Mesh.” His boss allowed him to develop his flowchart based proposal into a working model. He went ahead in his focused task of writing the HTML language, the HTTP application, and the WorldWideWeb.app– the first web browser and the pager editor. The web was made public in 1993 and it would not be an exaggeration to say that the world in the web today, immersed – lock, stock and barrel; emotions to animation.
While we all are experiencing the benefits of this revolutionary technology, its refinement happening with every passing day, the founder himself is immensely worried with the ”increased commodification of personal information.” He is on a mission to save this great tool from the multifarious problems dominating online life. This tool was to democratise information, give the world a level playing field, provide marginalised groups a voice simultaneously making their life easier. Given the present predicament, Berners Lee wants users to have ”complete control” of their data.
Three thoughts from the creator can be the guiding principles in the forward journey of the WWW. He says, ”You should have complete control of your data. It’s not oil. It’s not a commodity.” He goes on to add, ”it has also created opportunity for scammers, given a voice to those who spread hatred, and makes all kinds of crimes easier to commit.” The final being, ”If we give up on building a better web now, then the web will not have failed us. We will have failed the web.”
WWW IS A LIVING PRODUCT TO BE CONTINUOUSLY IMPROVISED AND SCALED TO THE WORLD’S NEEDS.
Sanjay Sahay