We Are The Web

Ten years ago, Netscape's explosive IPO ignited huge piles of money. The brilliant flash revealed what had been invisible only a moment before: the World Wide Web. As Eric Schmidt (then at Sun, now at Google) noted, the day before the IPO, nothing about the Web; the day after, everything.

      -- from We Are The Web by Kevin Kelly in Wired Magazine 13.08, August 2005 [all quotes ibid]

I was introduced to the Web sometime in 1994 by a friend and co-worker. He had discovered a cool new application called NCSA Mosaic and he was telling everyone about it. I tried it. The Web seemed like an interesting toy... but I had to ask, what it was really "good for"?

...Before the Netscape browser illuminated the Web, the Internet did not exist for most people. If it was acknowledged at all, it was mischaracterized as either corporate email (as exciting as a necktie) or a clubhouse for adolescent males (read: pimply nerds). It was hard to use. On the Internet, even dogs had to type. Who wanted to waste time on something so boring?

I was one of the people for whom the Internet existed Before Netscape. We had email both at home and where I worked (and it was much more interesting and exciting than a necktie). I belonged to several USENET news groups. I used FTP. I was a savvy techie. But I still didn't guess what was coming.

...in a blink a world of DIY possibilities was born. Suddenly it became clear that ordinary people could create material anyone with a connection could view. The burgeoning online audience no longer needed ABC for content.

I don't really recall the Netscape IPO. I'm sure I noticed it but, unlike Wall Street, I wasn't affected by it.

What I do recall vividly is noticing more and more web addresses appearing in "unusual" places, such as the gas station and on delivery trucks. For me, the Web became something to be taken seriously in 1996/97 when I did my first truly satisfactory search (years before Google came on the scene). I wanted something; I searched; I found what I wanted. All on the Web. And things have only gotten better.

...The scope of the Web today is hard to fathom. The total number of Web pages, including those that are dynamically created upon request and document files available through links, exceeds 600 billion. That's 100 pages per person alive.

How could we create so much, so fast, so well? In fewer than 4,000 days, we have encoded half a trillion versions of our collective story and put them in front of 1 billion people, or one-sixth of the world's population. That remarkable achievement was not in anyone's 10-year plan.

Today, I use the web both for business and for pleasure. I write web pages and CGI scripts for my own use. I've published articles in online journals. I get paid to create web content as part of my job.

Between us, Rich and I own at least a dozen domain names. I maintain three regular weblogs, contribute to two more, and have helped friends and family set up weblogs and web sites. I've discovered the joys of HTML, CGI, and yes, even JavaScript on occasion.

I've gone from using AltaVista to praising the value of MetaCrawler to discovering the True Way That Is Google. "To google" has become a verb.

When you stop to think about it, the world has changed remarkably in only ten years.

...Only small children would have dreamed such a magic window could be real. I have reviewed the expectations of waking adults and wise experts, and I can affirm that this comprehensive wealth of material, available on demand and free of charge, was not in anyone's scenario.... There wasn't enough money in all the investment firms in the entire world to fund such a cornucopia. The success of the Web at this scale was impossible.

But if we have learned anything in the past decade, it is the plausibility of the impossible.

Ten years ago, I wrote on my new, personal home page: "It's been said that the power of the press belongs to the person who owns one. These days, a lot of us own (or rent) the late 20th century equivalent of the printing press. Freedom of speech will never be quite the same again."

I wrote that before web sites were ubiquitous, before having a domain name was de rigueur. It was years before weblogs, longer still before community sites such as Scipionus.com were envisioned (see Wired News for Sept. 02, 2005.)

Little did I guess what was coming!

...Linking unleashes involvement and interactivity at levels once thought unfashionable or impossible. It transforms reading into navigating and enlarges small actions into powerful forces. For instance, hyperlinks made it much easier to create a seamless, scrolling street map of every town. They made it easier for people to refer to those maps. And hyperlinks made it possible for almost anyone to annotate, amend, and improve any map embedded in the Web. Cartography has gone from spectator art to participatory democracy.

The electricity of participation nudges ordinary folks to invest huge hunks of energy and time into making free encyclopedias, creating public tutorials for changing a flat tire, or cataloging the votes in the Senate. More and more of the Web runs in this mode. One study found that only 40 percent of the Web is commercial. The rest runs on duty or passion.

For me, it's passion. I delight in this new interconnected world. I love working with the web, adding my content to the larger knowledge base. I'm still tickled whenever someone reads my weblog and sends me a comment.

...The Netscape IPO wasn't really about dot-commerce. At its heart was a new cultural force based on mass collaboration. Blogs, Wikipedia, open source, peer-to-peer - behold the power of the people.

I don't know where the Web is going in the next decade, but I expect to enjoy it. Kevin Kelly provides some fascinating speculations in his article — the stuff of science fiction dreams.

...There is only one time in the history of each planet when its inhabitants first wire up its innumerable parts to make one large Machine. Later that Machine may run faster, but there is only one time when it is born.

You and I are alive at this moment.

Where will we go from here?