Twenty-five years ago, Tim Berners-Lee published his proposal for what became the world wide web. But what of the next 25 years?
The web's creator -- and other experts -- look ahead in Wired's Web at 25 feature celebrating the wonders of the web.
Tim Berners-Lee Creator of the world wide web "Like the average 25-year-old, the web has been shaped by a vast array of influences -- in fact, it was built through the efforts of millions. So this anniversary is for everyone. We should look proudly on what we've built. And as with most twentysomethings, the web's full potential is just starting to show. A radically open, egalitarian and decentralised platform, it is changing the world, and we are still only scratching the surface of what it can do.
Anyone with an interest in the web's future -- and that's everyone, everywhere -- has a role in ensuring it achieves all it can."
Read Tim Berners-Lee's article now
Marc Andreessen Entrepreneur, investor and software engineer "I'm increasingly confident that the web will be a central platform for human creativity for decades. With technologies such as HTML5 and modern JavaScript, the web can be used to create almost any kind of application: games, spreadsheets and video. I expect the web to be built into every new computer-based device and user interface for the next 50 years."
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Jimmy Wales Cofounder of Wikipedia and Wikia hosting "The one key thing that will affect the web (and the world) over the next few years is the incredible explosion of growth in the internet in the developing world. I carry around with me a Huawei Ideos smartphone that sells for $50 (£30) in Kenya -- and there are hundreds of thousands of these in Africa. The boom we've experienced is now going to happen there."
Mikko Hypponen Chief researcher of F-Secure "Advancements in computing power and data storage have made wholesale surveillance possible. But they've also made leaking possible, which will keep organisations worrying about getting caught over any wrongdoing. The future of the web is hanging in the balance between parties that want to keep us under surveillance and parties that want to reveal the nature of such surveillance. Both parties have the data revolution on their side."
Read Mikko Hypponen's article now
Joi Ito Director of the MIT Media Lab "We talk about the internet of things; we're going to have the internet of microbes and people and biology. We're going to create networks of biological things. Add nanotech and little micro machines, and the way those things communicate with each other will be influenced by the way that we're architecting the internet.
We're making robots that create biology; biology that creates robots; and hybrids of all of them -- and they need to communicate."
Nigel Shadbolt Head of Web and Internet Science Group at the University of Southampton and chair and cofounder of the Open Data Institute "For me, the most unexpected part of the web's evolution is the degree to which it has ushered in a new kind of AI -- augmented intelligence. The web provides millisecond access to vast amounts of knowledge, which makes us more capable."
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Keren Elazari Security specialist and industry analyst with GigaOM Research "Given the history of humanity thus far, the internet will not be a hive of collaboration, co-operation and enhanced democracy. It has the potential to divide us and destroy our world. Proponents of the Singularity speak of an impending time when everyone uploads their minds into the cloud, and man and machine evolve into one hyperconnected being. But why wait? Most of us are already cyborgs anyway, relying on technology for much of our intellectual, social, biological and cultural endeavours."
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Vint Cerf Co-chair of Campus Party and a cofounder of the Internet Society "The greatest surprise for me, in terms of public engagement in the use of the internet and especially the web, was the massive influx of content and the rapidly growing population of self-taught webmasters. Most content creators were motivated by the satisfaction that the information they shared was useful to someone. Of course, the avalanche of content flowing into the internet led to the need for ways to discover information of interest, which led to the invention of search tools."
Nick D'Aloisio Creator of Summly "The evolution of the web should correspond to the trends emerging in the mobile ecosystem. On mobile, there is a demand for immediacy and concise presentation. I believe the expectation of live, updated snippets of information will propagate to the web.
These snippets might be "card-like", modular objects, from text to images, videos, infographs and maps."
Read Nick D'Aloisio's article now
Ze Frank Executive vice president of video at BuzzFeed "The executive vice president of video at BuzzFeed predicts that sorry will be no easier to say."
Arianna Huffington Editor-in-chief of the Huffington Post "The internet's adolescence was filled with late nights, loud music, junk food, indiscriminate dating and trying to figure out what it wanted to be when it grew up. Well, now it's grown up, and what it grew up to be is a place where our online and our offline lives have merged. The qualities we care most about offline are being increasingly reflected in our experiences online."
Read Arianna Huffington's article now
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
