chapter 16: the world wide web “the world wide web is the most important single outcome of the...

Chapter 16: The World Wide Web

“The World Wide Web is the most important single outcome of the personal computer.

It is the ‘Gutenberg press’ that is democratizing information.”

Bill Atkinson, 1942 -

Searching and finding information is critical to knowing

According to Tim Berners-Lee, creator of the World Wide Web,

"The Internet [Net] is a network of networks. Basically it is made from computers and cables.... The [World Wide] Web is an abstract imaginary space of information.

On the Net, you find computers — on the Web, you find documents, sounds, videos, ... information. On the Net, the connections are cables between computers;

on the Web, connections are hypertext links.

The Web exists because of programs which communicate between computers on the Net. The Web could not be without the Net. The Web made the Net useful

because people are really interested in information and don't really want to have [to] know about computers and cables."


Early methods of organizing stored information such as manuscripts was haphazard, making it difficult to find specific pages, documents

Initial divisions were between things that were beneficial or harmful and then evolved into categories for food, medicine, tools.

Civilizations started to separate concepts and objects in more systematic ways.


Linnaeus – Swedish scientist and educator – considered the founder of modern taxonomy or the science of classifying organisms – his 1735 book Systema Naturae, gave general (genus) and specific (species) names in Latin for all living things which are still used today.

Linnaeus was the first to describe human beings as Homo sapiens (man+wise), and although he criticized any idea that suggested "evolution," he did argue that humans and chimpanzees shared a genus: Homo troglodytes (man+cave dweller).


Thomas JeffersonThird President of the United States1743 - 1826 “[The people] are in truth the only legitimate proprietors of the soil and government.”

He divided his personal library into three areas: memory (history), reason (philosophy and science) and imagination (arts).

An inveterate collector of books, Jefferson sold his personal library to Congress in 1815 in order to rebuild the collection of the Congressional Library, destroyed by fire in 1814.

In January 1815, Congress accepted Jefferson's offer, appropriating $23,950 for his 6,487 books, and the foundation was laid for a great national library.

The Jeffersonian concept of universality, the belief that all subjects are important to the library of the American legislature, is the philosophy and rationale behind the comprehensive collecting policies of today's Library of Congress.


In 1876 Melvil Dewey introduced his Dewey Decimal Classification system .

He is known as the founder of modern librarianship.

His book categorizing system is based on ten class of subjects with subtopics.

This system is still used today – in 95 percent of all city and public school libraries in the US and more than 135 countries worldwide.

Zoological SciencesThe Zoological Sciences, the 590's, are divided into ten subdivisions. 591 Zoology 592 Invertebrates 593 Protozoa 594 Mollusa 595 Other Invertebrates (worms and insects) 596 Vertebrates 597 Fishes 598 Reptiles and Birds 599 Mammals


With computer networking, paper file cards were replaced by digital versions and this conversion made the search engine necessary.

After WWII, the Cold War set in and the US military needed a way to communicate across the country if other forms of communication were disrupted.

This resulted in the first communications network between computers. Researchers sent the first email message in 1969 from UCLA to Stanford.


In the 1970s powerful mainframe computers were popular in government, business and university research sites around the world – and the use of email became widespread…especially after satellite links were added to the system – and the INTERNATIONAL Network became INTERNET.

Before the WWW, files were exchanged through the Internet using File Transfer Protocol (FTP).

The first computer based network search engine was Archie – created by two students at McGill Univ. in Montreal in 1990 – which allowed searchers to find FTP files.


The next year, two Univ. of Minnesota students introduced gopher – a menu driven document retrieval program for the internet.

1994 Yahoo (Yet Another Hierarchical Officious Oracle) was created by 2 Stanford Univ. students – Filo and Yang – and was a collection of web pages that were divided into logical categories.

Now there are many other choices of sophisticated full-service Web portals controlled by major corporations. Google is one of the most popular.

Recently Yahoo spent more than a billion dollars to upgrade its own search engine that runs as fast as Google and with more specific database coverage.


Libraries use the Online Computer Library Center now - digital catalogs to more than 45,000 libraries around the world.

World Wide Web – is a new tool for communicating and locating information… globally.

Chapter 16: The World Wide Web Google Homepage

Google is used to search the web about 140,000 times every minute or 200 million searches a day.


GOOGLE , the search engine, is a noun and a verb.. it is one of the fastest, easiest and most popular search engines available on the WWW

It is a welcome change from most other overly busy looking portals – lots of white space and easy to use.

Most searches take less than one second to complete as the engine looks through its database collection of over six billion web pages.

The two visionary Stanford University students who created google say the name comes from a mathematical term that refers to a number larger than all the atoms that make up the universe – a googol.

Its corporate ethos is “do no evil”

Google creators Sergey Brin & Larry PageEach worth 7 billion


Google Graphic Tributes to Mondrian & Picasso

Analysis of Google• Most Popular Because Easy to

Use• Good use of Graphic Design• Mixes Searching with

Advertisements*• 71 Percent of 7-12 Graders Use

Internet as Main Source

*They reject advertising with links that take users to pages that feature pop-ups, sell alcohol or tobacco, and run negative political messages or political advocacy ads. They also have some fun…


From Alice to Ocean, First Book and CD Combination

The WWW has earned its place as a valuable resource for information, entertainment and blatant commercialism.

It has the immediacy of radio and TV, the totality of information of print, and the visual and audio qualities of motion pictures – and it is interactive.

Multimedia and Interactive Multimedia are different – the interactive part means a user can be passive or active in manipulating the media presentation. There are three principle applications for interactive multimedia: govt., corporate and consumer.

One example is stand-alone kiosks in California that allow the user to renew a drivers license or pay a minor traffic ticket. CD- ROM programs are used in education, entertainment and commerce.


Videotex terminals have allowed consumers to get select information – in the home or in the store.

The Minitel is a Videotex online service accessible through the telephone lines, and is considered one of the world's most successful pre-World Wide Web online services.

It was launched in France in 1982 by the PTT (Poste, Téléphone et Télécommunications; divided since 1991 between France Télécom and La Poste). Since its early days, users could make online purchases, make train reservations, check stock prices, search the telephone directory, and chat in a similar way to that now made possible by the Internet.


Electronic Bulletin Boards – another platform for computer-mediated communication that offers a wide range of services – banking, shopping, chatting, news.

Users get easy access to the Internet via a program that is organized in content and graphic design similar to a magazine… AOL is one example.


Things changed when a computer language was developed that was used to access information on the Internet – that led directly to the WWW.

Mosaic, a web browser developed by a student at Univ. of Illinois alsomade accessing and downloading files that contained still and moving pictures with audio as simple as clicking a mouse.

Web browsers used hypertext links to turn the text-dominated Internet into a colorful, content filled excursion.

Standard protocol for Web file creation is called HTML (Hypertext Markup Language)

This ensures that your web browser can request information from a Web server so that you can see all the words and images on your own computer screen.

In 1980, while an independent contractor at CERN from June to December 1980, Berners-Lee proposed a project based on the concept of hypertext, to facilitate sharing and updating information among researchers


Browser Wars began between Netscape and Microsofts Internet Explorer in 1995,because with most computers around the world (95 %) using Microsoft Window operating software with Internet Explorer built in, Microsoft had a tremendous marketing advantage over Netscape – a monopoly.

There are other browsers available such as Mozilla or Firefox. Apple provides Safari.

Media ConvergenceServices offered through the telephone, TV and computer will likely morph into one – teleputers…We can see this in the devices we now have… cell phones with pictures, internet connections and other features.


A new trend with both search engines and directories is the purchase of listings.

Search engines and directories now offer Web site owners the opportunity to pay a fee in return for a listing in a better position in its search results listing and, in some cases, even a guaranteed top position.

Should searchers be wary of purchased placements? Not necessarily, but as always, searchers should review each site with a critical eye.

According to a February 2003 survey by Nielsen// NetRatings (http://www.nielsen-netratings.com), one of the leading Internet and digital media audience information and analysis services, the top five Internet search engines in the United States are:

* Google * Yahoo! * MSN * AOL * Ask Jeeves


Background on these search engines

Google (google.com)—Google is one of the largest search engines on the Internet with more than 3 billion searchable pages. Ranking of results is based on page popularity measured in links from other pages.

Yahoo! (yahoo.com)—Yahoo! is the Web's oldest directory. In late 2002, Yahoo! began using Google's search engine to generate its main results, but Yahoo!'s search results pages still show categories that link to Web sites that have been reviewed and approved by an editor.

MSN (msn.com)—MSN is a hybrid search engine. MSN has a team of editors who monitor the most popular searches being performed and determine sites believed to be the most relevant. MSN also uses search results from the human-powered LookSmart (looksmart.com) directory. For more obscure queries, it uses crawler-based results from Inktomi (inktomi.com).

AOL (search.aol.com)—AOL Search is a search engine that provides users with editorial listings from Google. It is possible that the same search on Google and AOL Search will come up with very similar matches. The AOL Search primarily is used by AOL subscribers.

Ask Jeeves (ask.com)—Ask Jeeves is a hybrid search engine that allows the user to ask a question using "natural language" and then deliver Web pages that answer that question. If Ask Jeeves cannot find an answer within its own database, it will provide matching Web pages from other search engines.


Website design has become a specialization – creation and management/maintenance. Designers are called information architects for the information superhighway…


Because we use the web as a source for information we need to have some way of analyzing a website to know whether the information on it is credible – user be beware!

A five point checklist: 1. Authority – who is responsible for creating the information2. Accuracy – can sources of information be easily checked3. Objectivity – is news, advertising and opinion clearly separated4. Currency – is it clear how often the files are updated5. Coverage – does it seem as if the subject is adequately discussed

Three technical aspects that indicate quality: Do the files download quicklyAre typographical and visual message choices appropriate for contentDoes the site contain useful information without spelling or typographical errors


Ethical Perspective• Free Speech vs. Censorship

• Hate Speech and Pornography?

Remote-Controlled Hunting

Chapter 16: The World Wide WebEthical Perspective Privacy Concerns – esp. personal information

TiVo SnoopingA service that allows customers to digitally record television with a DVR -- digital video recorder – that is controlled by the TiVo operating system. TiVo sends users viewing records to corporate headquarters, however…

EncryptionInformation security is provided on computers and over the Internet by a variety of methods. A simple but straightforward security method is to only keep sensitive information on removable storage media like floppy disks. But the most popular forms of security all rely on encryption, the process of encoding information in such a way that only the person (or computer) with the key can decode it.

"USA Patriot Act," 2001* ENHANCED SURVEILLANCE PROCEDURESSec. 201. Authority to intercept wire, oral, and electronic communications relating to terrorism.

Cookies Cookies are very small text files (usually around 50 to 150 bytes and always less than 4kb) downloaded from a Web site by your browser. Some stay in your Random Access Memory and are deleted when you close your browser. Others are saved to your hard drive when you close your browser. They are used by Web site owners to remember your preferences and by advertisers to track your online habits, and target ads according to your interests. The use of the term "your" is a little misleading. It's not really "your" visits that are recorded, but "someone's." Cookies do not identify you, but they can keep track of your movements from page to page on a site.


Ethical Perspective • Access Considerations

• Sharing Costs• Availability for All

• Accessibility Issues • Americans with Disability Act (ADA), 1990

• Web Accessibility

A blind person surfing the web will most likely use very much the same computer as someone who is sighted.

The basic personal computer is supplemented by technology called screen access software, which translates information on the screen into synthesized speech or Braille. The program used to surf the web will most likely be Microsoft Internet Explorer.

When entering a web page, the blind person will probably check out the hypertext links that are on the page.

This is usually accomplished by jumping from link to link with the Tab key; the screen access software automatically reads the highlighted text as the focus moves from link to link.

If the highlighted text is something like “How to Contact Us” or “Visit Your Shopping Cart,” the blind user will be able to make some sense out of the link. If, however, the highlighted text is “Click Here,” or “Here,” it will be difficult if not impossible for the blind user to interpret the meaning of the link without using a different navigation strategy.

With the more recent screen access software/browser combinations, it is possible for the blind web surfer to explore the page one line at a time, thus alleviating this problem. However, being forced to examine every detail of a web page just to learn the meaning of a hypertext link is a time-consuming process which, ideally, should be avoided.

Chapter 16: The World Wide Web Educational (.edu) Sitesare not the Top Choices

Cultural PerspectiveMany popular portals (sites that have news, information and links) are commercial.

WWW has moved away from educational roots to commercial use

Some alternative initiatives are BLOGS or Web logs – public bulletin boards in which users publish a personal journal on almost every topic imaginable with contributions from anyone.


Bookmarks allow users to mark favorite sites – personalizing the users experienceThese are addresses or URLs that get the user back to a favorite site.

URLs - Abbreviation of Uniform Resource Locator, the global address of documents and other resources on the World Wide Web.

The first part of the address indicates what protocol to use, and the second part specifies the IP address or the domain name where the resource is located.

For example, the two URLs below point to two different files at the domain pcwebopedia.com.

The first specifies an executable file that should be fetched using the FTP protocol; the second specifies a Web page that should be fetched using the HTTP protocol:

ftp://www.pcwebopedia.com/stuff.exe http://www.pcwebopedia.com/index.html Web terms:

URL, Protocol, Http, Blog, Cyberspace


ProtocolAn agreed-upon format for transmitting data between two devices.

The protocol determines the following: the type of error checking to be used how the sending device will indicate that it has finished sending a message how the receiving device will indicate that it has received a message

http is hypertext transfer protocol

Cyberspace - The electronic medium of computer networks, in which online communication takes place.

Chapter 16: The World Wide WebCritical perspectivePerhaps the WWW not a primary source of information – but certainly an important supplement to TV and integral to social contact for many.

What are the implications? What are the opportunities?

Future directions: Now: newspapers on the web – the end of printed newspapers?

Widespread use of VR (virtual reality) – 3D formats simulating the real world or imagined with the participant controlling movement through the space… conferences in person may be replaced entirely… degrees/courses on the web instead?

Wireless networks have made access even more flexible!

Online course page

Chapter 16: The World Wide WebThe More You Know, The More You See Seeing is a complex process that involves the mind as well as the eyes of the viewer.The way the body seeks and processes information is via the senses. Visual information is one of the primary sources we depend on.

Visual communication is a two –way process – the sender and the receiver .Strong messages combine aesthetical elements with content that matters.Emotional and intellectual attributes are culturally bound, making it a challenge to create successful messages.

Chapter 16: The World Wide WebPictures are learned before words – then sounds associated with what we experience become represented by abstract words.

Reading words is often more valued than reading pictures (visual literacy) as we progress through school. Art as a subject is made into a specialty – an extra for most.

Yet our society uses images in many ways that we need to understand. Many forms of communication are increasingly dependent on effective visuals – mediated images.

There are critics who feel that this evolution has issues…Philosopher Hanno Hardt warns that TV is replacing words in print as the important factor in social communication. Reading is losing to watching because viewing requires less mental processing.

Chapter 16: The World Wide WebCritics blame everything from the rise in the crime rate to the deterioration of educational institutions on the concurrent rise in the number of mediated images that we see daily.

Perhaps rebellious youths are attracted to visual symbols because words are associated with old ways of communicating and old ways of establishing social order.

Pictures are fascinating, easily understood within a culture and can be used for propaganda purposes. All political leaders understand that to control a country, they must also control the pictures.


Educators worry about why so many young people can’t or won’t read – will the convergence in the new multimedia change this?

Write a short response.

Educational psychologist Jerome Bruner of NY University cites studies showing that people remember only 10 percent of what they hear and 30 % of what they read, but about 80 % of what they see and do.

Chapter 16: The World Wide WebWhat did you do when you first heard of 9/11? What medium did you seek to learn more about this tragedy?

If there were a disaster, to what medium would you go to know more about what to do? Why?

What are some images that are part of our collective memory?


As visual communicators we need to remember: the most powerful, meaningful and culturally important messages are those that combine words and pictures equally and respectfully.

Adbusters is a global network of artists, activists, writers, pranksters, students, educators and entrepreneurs who want to advance the new social activist movement of the information age.

Their aim is to topple existing power structures and forge a major shift in the way we will live in the 21st century.Above are some samples of their mock ads.

chapter 16: the world wide web “the world wide web is the most important single outcome of the...

Documents

world wide web early

personal library

congressional library

stored information

internet net

net useful

great national library

tim bernerslee