What is the world wide web? - Twila Camp
The World Wide Web,
where you're likely watching this video,
is used by millions of people every day
for everything from
checking the weather,
ordering food,
and chatting with friends
to raising funds,
sharing news,
or starting revolutions.
We use it from our computers, our phones, even our cars.
It's just there,
all around us, all the time.
But what is it exactly?
Well first of all, the World Wide Web is not the Internet,
even though the terms are often used interchangeably.
The Internet is simply the way computers connect to each other
in order to share information.
When the Internet first emerged,
computers actually made direct calls to each other.
Today, networks are all around us,
so computers can communicate seamlessly.
The communication enabled through the Internet
has many uses,
such as email, file transfer, and conferencing.
But the most common use
is accessing the World Wide Web.
Think of the Web as a bunch of skyscrapers,
each representing a web server,
a computer always connected to the Internet,
specifically designed to store information and share it.
When someone starts a website,
they are renting a room in this skyscraper,
filling it with information
and linking that information together
in an organized way for others to access.
The people who own these skyscrapers
and rent space in them
are called web hosts,
but anyone can set up a web server
with the right equipment a bit of know-how.
There's another part to having a website,
without which we would be lost in the city
with no way of finding what we need.
This is the website address,
which consists of domain names.
Just like with a real life address,
a website address lets you get where you want to go.
The information stored in the websites
is in web languages,
such as HTML and JavaScript.
When we find the website we're looking for,
our web browser is able to take all the code on the site
and turn it into words, graphics, and videos.
We don't need to know any special computer languages
because the web browser creates a graphic interface for us.
So, in a lot of ways,
the World Wide Web is a big virtual city
where we communicate with each other
in web languages,
with browsers acting as our translators.
And just like no one owns a city,
no one owns the Web;
it belongs to all of us.
Anyone can move in and set up shop.
We might have to pay an Internet service provider
to gain access,
a hosting company to rent web space,
or a registrar to reserve our web address.
Like utility companies in a city,
these companies provide crucial services,
but in the end,
not even they own the Web.
But what really makes the Web so special
lies in its very name.
Prior to the Web,
we used to consume most information
in a linear fashion.
In a book or newspaper article,
each sentence was read from beginning to end,
page by page,
in a straight line until you reached the end.
But that isn't how our brains actually work.
Each of our thoughts is linked to other thoughts,
memories, and emotions
in a loose interconnected network, like a web.
Tim Berners-Lee, the father of the World Wide Web,
understood that we needed a way to organize information
that mirrored this natural arrangement.
And the Web accomplishes this through hyperlinks.
By linking several pages within a website
or even redirecting you to other websites
to expand on information or ideas immediately
as you encounter them,
hyperlinks allow the Web
to operate along the same lines as our thought patterns.
The Web is so much a part of our lives
because in content and structure,
it reflects both the wider society
and our individual minds.
And it connects those minds
across all boundaries,
not only enthnicity, gender, and age
but even time and space.
