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Weaving the Web: The Original Design and Ultimate Destiny of the World Wide Web (Paperback)

~ (Author) "When I first began tinkering with a software program that even gave rise to the idea of the World Wide Web, I named it Enquire,..." (more)
Key Phrases: hypertext community, global hypertext, inference languages, World Wide Web, Marc Andreessen, United States (more...)

4.1 out of 5 stars See all reviews (51 customer reviews)

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Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

If you can read this review (and voice your opinion about his book on Amazon.com), you have Tim Berners-Lee to thank. When you've read his no-nonsense account of how he invented the World Wide Web, you'll want to thank him again, for the sheer coolness of his ideas. One day in 1980, Berners-Lee, an Oxford-trained computer consultant, got a random thought: "Suppose all the information stored on computers everywhere were linked?" So he created a system to give every "page" on a computer a standard address (now called a URL, or Universal Resource Locator), accessible via the HyperText Transfer Protocol (HTTP), formatted with the HyperText Markup Language (HTML), and visible with the first browser, which did the trick of linking us all up.

He may be the most self-effacing genius of the computer age, and his egalitarian mind is evident in the names he rejected for his invention: "I thought of Mine of Information, or MOI, but moi in French means 'me,' and that was too egocentric.... The Information Mine (TIM) was even more egocentric!" Also, a mine is a passive repository; the Web is something that grows inexorably from everyone's contributions. Berners-Lee fully credits the colorful characters who helped him get the bobsled of progress going--one colleague times his haircuts to match the solstices--but he's stubbornly independent-minded. His quest is to make the Web "a place where the whim of a human being and the reasoning of a machine coexist in an ideal, powerful mixture."

Hard-core tech types may wish Berners-Lee had gone into deeper detail about the road ahead: the "boon and threat" of XML, free vs. commercial software, VRML 3-D imaging, and such. But he wants everyone in on the debate, so he wrote a brisk book that virtually anyone can understand. --Tim Appelo --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly

This lucid but impersonal memoir conveys some vital history and intriguing philosophy concerning the Internet, written by the man who invented such ubiquitous terms as URL, HTML and World Wide Web. British-born physicist Berners-Lee is now the director of the World Wide Web Consortium, which is based at MIT and sets software standards for the Web. In the late 1980s, he wrote the first programs that set up the Web, thus revolutionizing the Internet by allowing users to hyperlink among the world's computers. It was a quantum conceptual leap, and not everyone instantly understood it (some researchers had to be convinced that posting information was better than writing custom programs to transfer it). The release of graphical browsers such as Netscape Navigator made the Web much easier for home users to navigate and led to the commercialization of the Net. Although Berners-Lee calmly eschewed opportunities to get rich, he doesn't subscribe to the notion, common among pre-Web denizens of the Internet, that commercialization is a pox upon cyberspace. After short takes on current issues like privacy and pornography, Berners-Lee moves into prediction and prescription: the Web needs more intuitive interfaces and integration of tools, "annotation servers" that allow comments to be posted on documents and "social machines" that enable national plebiscites. And while he's no digital utopian, he thinks an Internet that balances decentralization and centralization can contribute to a more harmonious society. Berners-Lee's tone is more lofty than quotidian. He'd rather muse about the benefits of decentralization that his revolutionary technology makes possible than respond to Internet skeptics and critics. But he was very, very right a decade ago, and he's well worth reading now. First serial to Vanity Fair; 7-city author tour; 25-city radio campaign.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

Paperback: 256 pages
Publisher: Harper Paperbacks; 1 edition (November 7, 2000)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 006251587X
ISBN-13: 978-0062515872
Product Dimensions: 7.8 x 5.3 x 0.7 inches
Shipping Weight: 3.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)

Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars See all reviews (51 customer reviews)

Amazon.com Sales Rank: #199,670 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Inside This Book (learn more)

First Sentence:
"When I first began tinkering with a software program that even gave rise to the idea of the World Wide Web, I named it Enquire, short for Enquire Within upon Everything, a musty old book of Victorian advice I noticed as a child in my parents' house outside" Read the first page

Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
hypertext community, global hypertext, inference languages, hypertext system

Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
World Wide Web, Marc Andreessen, United States, Advisory Committee, Dale Dougherty, European Commission, Michael Dertouzos, Mike Sendall, Pei Wei, San Antonio, San Francisco, America Online, Ben Segal, Dave Raggett, Internet Explorer, Mosaic Communications, Cyber Patrol, David Williams, Doug Engelbart, Hypertext Markup Language, Ted Nelson, Tom Bruce, University of Minnesota

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Citations (learn more)

This book cites 5 books:

Weaving the Web by Tim Berners-Lee in Front Matter (1), and Front Matter (2)
Getting It! (Harlequin Temptation) by Rhonda Nelson in Back Matter
Information Society by William J. Martin on page 88
The Global Information Society by William J. Martin on page 88
Literary Machines by Ted Nelson on page 5

72 books cite this book:

The Future of Ideas: The Fate of the Commons in a Connected World by Lawrence Lessig on 4 pages
Will & Vision: How Latecomers Grow to Dominate Markets by Gerard J. Tellis in Back Matter (1), Back Matter (2), and Back Matter (3)
Unit Operations: An Approach to Videogame Criticism by Ian Bogost in Back Matter (1), and Back Matter (2)
Digital Aboriginal: The Direction of Business Now: Instinctive, Nomadic, and Ever-Changing by Mikela Tarlow in Back Matter (1), and Back Matter (2)
JSP: A Beginner's Guide by Gary Bollinger on page 1, and page 6

See all 72 books citing this book

Books on Related Topics (learn more)

Nerds 2.0.1 by Stephen Segaller

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A Brief History of the Future by John Naughton

Discusses:

Multimedia and Hypertext by Jakob Nielsen

Discusses:

How the Web was Born by James Gillies

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	87% buy the item featured on this page: Weaving the Web: The Original Design and Ultimate Destiny of the World Wide Web 4.1 out of 5 stars (51) $15.00
	7% buy Where Wizards Stay Up Late: The Origins Of The Internet 4.5 out of 5 stars (63) $11.70
	3% buy The Internet Revolution: The Not-for-Dummies Guide to the History, Technology, and Use of the Internet 4.8 out of 5 stars (4) $19.62
	2% buy Spinning the Semantic Web: Bringing the World Wide Web to Its Full Potential 4.0 out of 5 stars (2) $29.00

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Customer Reviews

51 Reviews

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Average Customer Review

4.1 out of 5 stars (51 customer reviews)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A must read for those wanting to play in cyberspace, December 5, 1999

By	Keola Donaghy (Hilo, Hawai'i) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Weaving the Web : The Original Design and Ultimate Destiny of the World Wide Web by its Inventor (Hardcover)

Weaving The Web is a wonderful blending of three distinct subjects: the history of the World Wide Web, an astute analysis of the web's "current" state, that is, where it stands in the middle of 1999, and where it's founder believes and thinks it is headed. It is difficult to believe the accuracy of Berners-Lee's vision of what the web could be in the time that the web was just a dream, and how he worked to achieve it. He also dispels the common belief that he either disdains the accumulation of wealth that could have been his had he chosen a different path, or that he envies those individuals who have made millions (or billions) by building on the web's humble beginnings. He also does not begrudge the commercialization over the web, as many academics did at the time when the web was viewed primarily as a medium for the free sharing of ideas and information.

Berners-Lee talks in depth about the social implications of technology, and indeed the World Wide Web is a social beast as much as it is a technological one. He does separate, however, the duties of bodies like the W3C whose sole purpose is to facilitate and strengthen the standards and protocols that are providing new richness and robustness to the web. This is clearly highlighted in his discussion of PICS, which allows for creation of rules that can facilitate filtering of objectionable material on the web. Berners-Lee makes the clear distinction between those who create the PICS technology, and those who decide how it will be implemented.

It is evident from this book that Berners-Lee is far from finished in his duties. While not as radical as the initial concept of the World-Wide Web must have been in its time, his discussion of security, privacy, and collaboration and how they can and should be implemented on the web should be read by anyone who wants to be a player in Cyberspace. Berners-Lee does not hold a monopoly on great ideas for the web, but he clearly has a grasp on the balance and understanding of both the technology as well as its place in society that others would be well served to strive for.

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11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Could there be a better history of the web, August 30, 2000

By	Pete Nelson (Apple Valley, MN United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Weaving the Web : The Original Design and Ultimate Destiny of the World Wide Web by its Inventor (Hardcover)

I have heard so many stories of the beginnings of the web, but for the first time, here is how it really happened. Tim Berners-Lee, the man who developed the 'World Wide Web' now tells the tale of how all this hypertext-hoopla began.

Berners-Lee writes in plain english, allowing non-programmers to share in his vision and goals for a universal (or should that be uniform?) way to share information across the internet. Especially interesting is the history of the browser market itself, without all the 'browser-war' hype.

Best of all, this book does not read like a technical specification -- but is full of warmth and humor as we see Berners-Lee bring his brainchild to light.

I read "Where Wizards Stay Up Late: the Origins of the Internet" by Katie Hafner and Matthew Lyon, and desperately wished someone would do similar justice to the history of the web. Not only has someone now done just that, but that someone happens to be the inventor of the web! What more could you ask for?

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10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A must read for anyone interested in the Web, January 30, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Weaving the Web : The Original Design and Ultimate Destiny of the World Wide Web by its Inventor (Hardcover)

This is an amazing account of how the Web came to be by the man who pulled together the ideas of many others to create it. Considering how much his invention has changed the world, he is incredibly humble in telling his story. Very easy and fast read. Also provides a good background knowledge of the technical side for those interested in creating for the Web. Which, as he states over and over again, was one of the main reasons he created it; so people from anywhere, no matter who they were, could reach other people and share information. I found the technical information very easily absorbed and easy to understand. But I want to point out this is NOT a techy, how-to manual, full of jargon. Merely one man's story and an overview of the technology and ideas surrounding him. Highly recommend to anyone.

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Most Recent Customer Reviews

4.0 out of 5 stars An excelent book about the web history and future.
This is a great book. It explains in details how the web concept evolved. I think Tim Berners-Lee couldn't tell it better. Read more

Published 21 months ago by Fernando A. D. Costa

3.0 out of 5 stars If ever a man deserved a royalty check...
As one of the millions of people whose lives have changed for the better as a result of Berners-Lee's invention, I was more than happy to do my part to pad the man's checking... Read more

Published on June 21, 2007 by Alex Wright

4.0 out of 5 stars A Good Read About the Web

I love this quote from Tim Berners-Lee, the man responsible for the World Wide Web. He's a low profile genius who never profited from his invention. Read more

Published on May 23, 2007 by Michael P. Lewis

5.0 out of 5 stars Thoughts on the web from the man who invented it.
In a recent presidential election, Democrat Al Gore was ridiculed for "claiming" that he invented the Internet. Read more

Published on March 9, 2007 by Charles Ashbacher

2.0 out of 5 stars The web has never been so boring...
Yes, the book is important because of the role that Tim played in creating the web. It has scattered pieces of trivia and background information that I enjoy digging up from... Read more

Published on December 4, 2006 by Kab00m

4.0 out of 5 stars Insightful but ends in obscurity
This is a must-read for any postmodern Web developer. Helps keeps your eyes from succumbing to tunnel vision ideas like web 2.0. Read more

Published on November 21, 2006 by Yong Bakos

4.0 out of 5 stars A book of two halves
For the non-techie this is a good book to understand what drove Berners-Lee to invent the Web.The first half provides an interesting history leading up to the present day. Read more

Published on October 13, 2005 by Andrew M. Walser

5.0 out of 5 stars Much Closer with the Inventor of the World Wide Web
THIRTY years ago, this smart network was not existed, but now, nearly 1 billion people has already accessed into it. Read more

Published on September 24, 2005 by Budi Putra

4.0 out of 5 stars Computers will unleash a revolution of new possibilities
We all owe a great deal to Tim Berners-Lee. Not only did he invent the world wide web (WWW), he gave it away. Read more

Published on March 29, 2005 by Michael Davis

4.0 out of 5 stars From the Mouth of Sir Tim
Pro: A recount of the history of the world wide web from the creator himself. Second pro, buying the book of the guy who gave us this really cool thing, and letting him reap a... Read more

Published on April 2, 2004 by Robert Cannon

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