A Tim Berners Lee He is known for being the father of the Internet. It is still true, but it must be specified that his great work consisted in creating the HTTP protocol and, in the topic at hand, the Web, known as world Wide Web or WWW. Although the Internet is much more than the Web, this is one of its pillars. Such is its importance that people have been talking about it for a long time. its evolution to Web3. Which means that there is already a Web2 or Web 2.0 and that, in the beginning, there was a Web or Web1.
what difference are you three stages of the web? Is Web3 as promising as its proponents claim? Isn’t it enough with the Web2 or Web 2.0 with which we interact today? These and other questions we can answer by doing a brief review of the past, present and future of the World Wide Web. A way of knowing where we come from and where we are going with a technology that we use practically daily or even several times a day.
As an introduction, it should be remembered that the Web or World Wide Web was born in 1989 thanks to the Englishman Tim Berners Lee. For this, a NeXT computer. As a curiosity, the NeXT company was created by Steve Jobs in 1985 after his departure from Apple. In 1996 he would go back to Apple, merge Apple with NeXT. Returning to the topic at hand, the birth of the Web occurred in Switzerland, in the CERN facilitiespopular for hosting the LHC or large hadron collider.
the first website
Although the exact dates may vary, there is some consensus that the first Web, proposed by Tim Berners Lee, existed between 1989 and 2001. It is called static website and stands out for limiting itself to offering written content, and some other image. Interaction was very limited. At most, a form or email address email. The programming language to create the first Web was HTML. And in its first version, it gave for what it gave.
Notably the introduction of hyperlink. Today it seems normal to click on a word, phrase, object or button and a window or page opens. But in its day it was quite a revolution. Instead of consulting a document page by page (1, 2, 3, 4, 5…) you could jump from 1 to 4 depending on your interest in that content. Namely, the order to consume a text or an item changed completely.
At this time the first Internet companies emerged, called “dotcom” because their addresses used that domain. Some are still with us, but most are already a thing of the past. Between 1995 and 2001, these were the most visited pages all over the world, especially in the United States: Webcrawler, Geocities, Netscape, Yahoo, AOL, Lycos, Excite, MSN, eBay, Google… Some names will ring a bell because they are still there. Others merged with each other and/or ended up disappearing.
The Web2 or Web 2.0
Currently, we live with the second version of the Web. What has come to be called Web 2.0. The dynamic web has changed a lot during these years. And it has little to do with the original World Wide Web. Today, millions of companies are on the Internet. In 2018, there were more than 1.63 billion websites. In 2008, the figure was just 172 million. And in 1998, almost 2.5 million. In addition, new languages like PHP or CSS that allow you to create more complex pages. And the HTML itself supports various content such as embedded video or online applications.
Another feature of Web 2.0 is that it allows the user or Internet user to create their own content. In the first Web, the content came mainly from companies, universities or public institutions. Few could afford to contribute content with services like Geocities. But in the second Web, they arise social networks and blogs. In other words. Anyone could create their own space on the Internet to talk about any topic.
Furthermore, the pages they become more complexfacilitate interaction with the user, introduce changes and improvements depending on the visitor profile and, as I mentioned before, in Web 2.0 web applications proliferate. Unlike desktop do not require installation. Today, it is more common to work with web applications than with the classic desktop ones. We also access the Web from different devices. And what about the crowd of payment services to which we have access, in the form of an app or web.
In recent years, Web 2.0 has become a space of practically countless dimensions that is accessed by all sorts of devices. The Internet of Things is part of this Web where we can access cloud services completely naturally, contact administrations, buy online, manage your banking products or communicate and play with people who are miles away.
Web3 versus Web 2.0
There is still no specific date for when we will be able to move around Web3. At the moment, we can only read about what Web3 will do. Based on technologies that already exist, we will enjoy certain advantages. But there is still a way to go.
In principle, on the Web3 there will be no restrictions or blockages. Anyone can access a service. Payment services will be managed using tokens or cryptocurrencies. Payments through digital assets of this type will guarantee the internet user anonymity, since it is not necessary to provide personal data during payment. Another advantage is that the Web3 servers work in a decentralized networkso that if a server goes down, the web will still be up.
Web3 is directly associated with technologies such as blockchainthe cryptocurrencies or crypto assets such as NFTs or tokens. The metaverse is also part of this Web3 and, precisely, is one of its main attractions. interactive universes in three dimensions where everything can be created from scratch or bought and sold safely and anonymously.
