World's First Website
(The image above is the computer that hosted world's first website)
We tend to take for granted, the Digital world that we live in. It’s become so ingrained in all that we do in our day-to-day life that it’s safe to say that- we officially live in the “Internet of Things”! We rely on the internet for updates on the traffic, weather, local and national news and sports, help with homework, and even for scheduling. Now finding answers, to common questions have been solved with the help of voice assistants like Alexa, Siri, Google Assistant & others.
The internet has a collection of almost all the knowledge in human history and we are lucky enough to access it from the click of a button. In a way, it has helped us as humans to evolve, in every way; be it socialising, dating, watching tutorials to learn new things, all from the comfort of our own space.
It might have occurred to you, that how, when & where all this started? Let me take you, almost three decades back when the world’s first web page was launched on the 6th of August, 1991, and it is still active today! The page was created by Tim Berners-Lee, a British scientist, who also invented the World Wide Web (WWW) in 1989 while working at CERN. CERN is not an isolated laboratory, but rather the focal point for an extensive community that includes more than 17,000 scientists from over 100 countries.
So, why was the World Wide Web created in the first place? The answer to this is that, the idea behind creating the World Wide Web (WWW) was to use the internet as a place to store and share documents across the global network. Initially, for a few years, it met this purpose. But, later, people started using it as an academic source, or for research purposes, and even military means. And this is how the use of web grew like wildfire and began to run successfully, as a network for sharing information!New Discoveries: As the web grew, we realized we could use it to make money! The first online retailer was a bookstore by the name of Book Stacks Unlimited, created by Charles M. Stack in 1992. It was later on, re-launched by a guy named Jeff Bezos in the form of Amazon.com in 1994. By 1998, a search engine called Google crawled its way onto the web and completely revolutionized the way websites were expected to work.
Today's scenario is very different: No longer satisfied with simply holding all human knowledge and entertainment in the palm of their hands, today’s audience craves more. Users now know what they want, so, instant gratification is the currency of the day, and content marketing has become- the key to success for every business that we can lay our eyes on!
Bottom line: From that very first website to today’s deep and rich web, the World Wide Web has existed for one purpose: that is to connect. We share ideas, tell stories, and expand human knowledge, all thanks to the ever-expanding knowledge base that is the World Wide Web!