What is the World Wide Web (WWW)?

To understand the WWW one must first grasp the concept of a unified, collective faction. Thus to understand we must first grasp what the Internet and cyberspace actually are... Cyberspace is the virtual world that the Internet was created and is maintained in, the term was first coined in the mid-eighties by author and visionary William Gibson, his novel Neuromancer described the future as a great collective of computers and he called this future universe CYBERSPACE. The Internet on the other hand survives in this Cyberspace by having a central backbone, to which everything travels on, one might even liken the Internet and the WWW to a human body with its central nervous system radiating out in all directions and going to the different parts of the body (or in this case computers). But how did this thing we call the Internet get started.. In the 1950's the U.S. Military was involved in the Cold War with the former USSR and with the successful launch of the space satellite Sputnik, the Americans began to get frightened, if the Soviets had the power to launch a satellite into space, then surely they could knock out the then existent
computer that controlled the whole Department of Defense. Thus ARPANET (Advanced Research Projects Agency Network) was created. The backbone that would form the Internet was now in place with about four mainframes linked together so that if one system was knocked out the others would still function. In 1990, ARPANET was disbanded and the first commercial provider came on the scene, of course back then it was all text based and mostly from a UNIX prompt, but still it was more of a frame work than there had ever been. Then in 1991 CERN released a version of the WWW that was based on very primitive graphics and only involved around 130 web sites but it was a start.

Over the next few years (1990-1996) there was a web explosion. From its early beginning with 130 web sites to the present with millions of sites on-line and still it is growing at an exponential rate. Some experts predict that the WWW will reach a grid lock and come to a halt because of bandwidth problems within the next couple of years. Right now you can access the Internet by getting a service provider and having a copy of Netscape Navigator or Microsoft Internet Explorer. The reason for this gross explosion in the direction of the WWW is the following: it provides a new ground for advertising and a new media to work in.

With streaming audio and video, Java and VRML the web is the artist's playground with many new companies arising everyday that focus on web page
design and development. The web is constantly growing, from its feeble beginnings to its full force shockwave and live webcasts. We have a technological explosion at our fingertips. We are presented with two alternatives: to jump right in and get "shocked" or to let the Internet pass us by. Regardless we cannot ignore something of this size and power. We can jump on the bandwagon or disconnect completely.