We Are The Web

We Are The Web
I started reading this article "We are the web", which is part of our University studies. It is interesting reading the article "We are the Web", because it takes you through the history of the internet, it’s growth, the changes and new methods of using the internet. The article starts discussing Netscapes IPO. IPO refers to when a private company decides to go public, meaning the stock market. IPO means Initial Public Offering. This lead to reading another article I searched on the internet about Netscape called "Remembering Netscape: The Birth of the Web". I would recommend you read it. I remember a little about Netscape and it’s run in with Microsoft, so I read the article to get the right information on what really happened.

My discovery of Netscape and the Internet
Now I remember going to my local library about, 1994/95 doing some research on photography and filmmaking. In the middle of the library was a computer, just one computer. In my view it was just another toy to play with. I went up to the counter and enquired about the computer. The librarian took me to the computer and explained it could be used for research on the internet. I had heard from a friend a little about the internet but it was no big deal. I paused for a moment and asked her “What is the internet?” She logged into the computer and opened what she called a web browser. It was called Netscape and she went to a search engine called Yahoo. This was all new to me so I played around with the computer, putting in different search requests to see what this Internet thingy had come up with. In fact I visited the library quite a lot. Not so much to borrow books but to explore this new world called the internet. One thing led to another and I started borrowing books on computers and the world wide web. Next thing you know I’m creating my own website.

The article "We are the Web" then goes on saying that the internet was made possible by a simple HTML tag called the hyperlink we all take for granted now.

Why say We are the Web
As an example there was a time when the web was being categorized for search engines using the Taxonomy method.

What is Taxonomy
Specialist people were employed to categorize websites and their content in an effort to categorize the internet and make it more user friendly. They used the Taxonomy method. This is categorizing subjects into hierarchal categories. But to use this system you had to search through each category to find the information you were looking for. Sometimes the categories you search through don’t lead you to the information you were looking for so you had to back track through the categories and start through another category tree. This at times was very frustrating.

Folksonomy
Folksonomy is why we are the web. Rather than employ specialist people to categorize the internet, why not use the users themselves. This is where tags come in. For instance, if you have a delicious account to store your book marks, you write a description and create a tag meaning a word or list of words you would categorize the web page under. Not only does a search engine get a list of tags or categories of a webpage they also get a description. We folks are now the categorizers. That is what the term folksonomy means. These tags would then become what is called Metadata. We can also use Metadata in our websites which helps search engines categorize our webpage when their robots crawl websites.

Here is another example of why we are the web with Amazon.com. When a person purchases a product, they can also write a review about the product such as a movie. You are the reviewer of the movie and there are possibly many other people who have written a review on what they think of the film and if they would recommend it.

Then there is Social Networking sites such Youtube sharing videos along with MySpace, Facebook, Flickr, Delicious and many more. The user which is you are contributing to the internet.

We are the Web.
The virtual world or cyberspace of the internet is changing, evolving at a very fast rate. This is made possible by the contribution of content produced by millions if not billions of users on the internet. We as internet users now have the power to contribute and expand the knowledge, ideas, technical possibilities and the future of the internet.

What will the internet be like in the next 10 years? I’m sorry I don’t have a crystal ball to work that one out. We have to wait 10 years for that answer.


References
Wired: We are the web:
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/13.08/tech.html?pg=3&topic=tech&topic_set=
Remembering Netscape – The birth of the Web: http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2005/07/25/8266639/index.htm
Taxonomy Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxonomy
Folksonomy Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folksonomy
Youtube: http://www.youtube.com
MySpace: http://www.myspace.com
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com
Flickr: http://www.flickr.com
Delicious: http://www.delicous.com
Amazon.com: http://www.amazon.com