Guess who turned 30 a few weeks ago? If you’re reading this newsletter, it’s because of the “world wide web” (that’s what the “www” in front of your website’s URL means, in case you didn’t’ know) that was introduced to the world in the Spring of 1993.
Tim Berners-Lee in 1993 was a physicist at CERN, the giant research facility in Switzerland that is home to giant particle accelerators. He had invented a better way to access the internet which prior to the web could be a rather tedious and text-based process.
“ CERN owned Berners-Lee’s invention, and the lab had the option to license out the World Wide Web for profit. But Berners-Lee believed that keeping the web as open as possible would help it grow…..Berners-Lee eventually convinced CERN to release the World Wide Web into the public domain without any patents or fees. He has since attributed the runaway success of the web to that single decision.”
And grow it did. It’s hard to imagine an area of your life has not been made better (usually) because of Mr. Berner’s desire to make sure that all could access the world’s information. Aside from Johannes Gutenberg’s development of movable type for the printing press over 500 years ago, it’s hard to think of an invention that has done more to democratize information than Mr. Berners-Lee’s “world wide web.”
Take a few minutes to read about how The World Wide Web became available to the broader public 30 years ago
