Modern technology gives us many things.

The World Wide Web is 20 years old today

www20thumbThe platform you’re using to read this story right now – World Wide Web – is 20 years old today after the technology was made available on a royalty-free basis.

On April 30, 1993, CERN – actually the European Organisation for Nuclear Research – decided the technology invented by British physicist Tim Berners-Lee to help physicists share information between universities around the world – would be offered to users for free.

As a result the web flourished and would go on to change they way we communicate.

“There is no sector of the society that has not been transformed by the invention, in a physics laboratory, of the web,” says Rolf Heuer, CERN director general.

“From research to business and education, the web has been reshaping the way we communicate, work, innovate and live.

The world first website - about the World Wide Web

“The web is a powerful example of the way that basic research benefits humankind.”

Not surprisingly the first website was about the World Wide Project itself and was hosted by Berners-Lee’s NeXT computer which was created by a company established by Apple co-founder Steve Jobs.

World Wide Web inventor British physicist Tim Berners-Lee

By the end of 1993 there were 500 known web servers and the world wide web accounted for one per cent of internet traffic.

Today, 20 years later, there are an estimated 630 million websites online.

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Thumbnail image courtesy of FreeDigitalPhotos.net