The electrical century: inventing the Web

By the late 1980's, the worldwide network we know as the Internet was serving many thousands of users, mainly in technical and research environments. But the system was far from user-friendly for the novice. Personal computers, which reached a mass market in the 1980's, had introduced casual users to computing with attractive and easy-to-learn graphical interfaces. By contrast, those who gained access to Internet-connected computers were often discouraged by the drab, text-only interfaces and complicated commands they encountered. In addition, because of the decentralized nature of the Internet, it was difficult to locate information online, despite the later introduction of finding aids such as Gopher and wide-area information server (WAIS) in the early 1990's. In the 1990's this situation would be dramatically transformed by a new Internet application known as the World Wide Web. The Web would fundamentally change the Internet: not only by expanding its infrastructure, but by making its content easy and somewhat fun to access. In the process, the Web would entice millions of new users onto the Internet and add to its original role as a tool of science and government to encompass entertainment, shopping, and personal expression. The Internet had provided a new information infrastructure to link the research centers of the world, but the World Wide Web would put a human and more democratic face on that infrastructure.