"The Read/Write Web"
by Bill Richardson
Overview
This article introduces a concise timeline of the World Wide Web and how it has evolved from a "read only" resource to a read/write tool, where anyone can publish their ideas and products from anyplace in the world with an Internet connection. Early days of the Web only gave people the ability to consume information - a one-way street for users. But now, with the introduction of blogs, forums and file-sharing programs, the Web is a new way to create online communities - two-way streets with plenty of detours.
The new read/write Web has changed the way people do business, run political campaigns, educate children, receive/report news and spend leisurely time. Tim Berners-Lee, who helped develop the World Wide Web in 1989, had a vision to make it, “A place where we (could) all meet and read and write.” His vision has evolved into a tool in which our world’s economy could no longer function without.
According to Will Richardson’s article, a 2003 survey by the Pew Internet and American Life Project, more than 53 million American adults (or 44 percent) contributed to content that is found online. In 2006, Technorati.com, a blog tracking service, found more than 25 million blogs. The word blog is short for Weblog, a resource people use for creating personal journals, building sites for colleagues, or filtering news for large or small audiences. Today hundreds of thousands of blogs are created daily and even more blog postings are being added to the unlimited amount of space on the World Wide Web.
No comments:
Post a Comment