The history of the Web.

The history of the World Wide Web begins in March 1989, when Tim Berners-Lee of the CERN laboratories in Geneva, Switzerland, circulated a proposal to develop a "hypertext system" for information sharing among researchers in different places. Hypertext is an idea that was introduced in the 1970s by industry notable Ted Nelson. A hypertext document is one that provides visible links to other documents.

Work began shortly thereafter on the first online browser(*), and by the end of 1990 the browser was on the way. By January 1993, 50 Web servers were in existence.

Thus, at its conception the Web was nothing more than a distributed hypermedia system.

The foundation for the Web is the Internet, the global system of networked computers that allows user-to-user communication and transfer of data files from one machine to any other on the network. It is important to note, however, that the Web is not the Internet and that as a system the World Wide Web does not necessarily require the Internet. In fact, the Web can be carried on any local area network or wide area network.

Five years after the World Wide Web came into existence, a Web site built in Las Vegas posted live feeds from highway surveillance cameras for the benefit of commuters. This development, Webcasting, now has the potential to make Microsoft the world's premier network.

Finally, the Web will allow TCI's John Malone to fulfill his vision of a 500-channel universe. The fact that it is the Web and not cable that is spearheading Malone's vision shouldn't be a cause for embarrassment for him, unlike the failure to live up his promise in the early '90s of a 500-channel cable universe.