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Summary and Reviews of Weaving The Web by Tim Berners-Lee

Weaving The Web by Tim Berners-Lee

Weaving The Web

The Original Design and Ultimate Destiny of the World Wide Web by its Inventor

by Tim Berners-Lee
  • Critics' Consensus:
  • First Published:
  • Sep 1, 1999, 226 pages
  • Paperback:
  • Sep 2000, 255 pages
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About This Book

Book Summary

Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the World Wide With new online businesses and communities forming every day, the full impact of Berners-Lee's (the founder of the World Wide Web) grand scheme has yet to be fully known.

Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the World Wide Web, has been hailed by Time magazine as one of the 100 greatest minds of this century. His creation has already changed the way people do business, entertain themselves, exchange ideas, and socialize with one another. With new online businesses and communities forming every day, the full impact of Berners-Lee's grand scheme has yet to be fully known.

Berners-Lee's creation was fueled by a highly personal vision of the Web as a powerful force for social change and individual creativity. He has never profited personally from the Web but has devoted himself to its continued growth and health. Now, this low-profile genius tells his own story of the Web's origins-from its revolutionary introduction and the creation of the now ubiquitous WWW and HTTP acronyms to how he sees the future development of this revolutionary medium. Today, Berners-Lee continues to facilitate the Web's growth and development as director of the World Wide Web Consortium and from his position at the MIT Laboratory for Computer Science.

Berners-Lee offers insights to help readers understand the true nature of the Web, enabling them to use it to their fullest advantage. He shares his views on such critical issues as censorship, privacy, the increasing power of software companies in the online world, and the need to find the ideal balance between the commercial and social forces on the Web. His incisive criticism of the Web's current state makes clear that there is still much work to be done. Finally, Berners-Lee presents his own plan for the Web's future, one that calls for the active support and participation of programmers, computer manufacturers, and social organizations to make it happen.

His vision of the Web is something much more than a tool for research or communication; it is a new way of thinking and a means to greater freedom and social growth than ever before possible.

Enquire Within upon Everything

When I first began tinkering with a software program that eventually 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 London. With its title suggestive of magic, the book served as a portal to a world of information, everything from how to remove clothing stains to tips on investing money. Not a perfect analogy for the Web, but a primitive starting point.

What that first bit of Enquire code led me to was something much larger, a vision encompassing the decentralized, organic growth of ideas, technology, and society. The vision I have for the Web is about anything being potentially connected with anything. It is a vision that provides us with new freedom, and allows us to grow faster than we ever could when we were...

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Reviews

Media Reviews

PC Week
Tim Berners-Lee forever transformed the global business and computing model with the creation of the World Wide Web.

Kirkus Reviews
Weaving the Web is unique because it was written by Tim Berners-Lee, who created the Web and is now steering it along exciting future directions. No one else can claim that. And no one else can write this--the true story of the Web.

Author Blurb Alan Baratz, Ph.D., President, Java Software, Sun Microsystems, Inc.
Only one individual has the authority and unique perspective to document the creation and evolution of the World Wide Web. Tim Berners-Lee recounts with indisputable clarity and candor how it all really happened the politics involved in bringing his model to life at the CERN physics lab, the infamous browser wars, the integration of Java technology, the creation of W3C and more.

Author Blurb Alan Baratz, Ph.D., President, Java Software, Sun Microsystems, Inc.
Only one individual has the authority and unique perspective to document the creation and evolution of the World Wide Web. Tim Berners-Lee recounts with indisputable clarity and candor how it all really happened the politics involved in bringing his model to life at the CERN physics lab, the infamous browser wars, the integration of Java technology, the creation of W3C and more.

Author Blurb Jeff Papows, President and CEO, Lotus Development Corp.
Tim Berners-Lee is the most qualified person on the planet to chronicle the Web. With the introspection and concern only a parent can truly express, he reaches beyond the common soundbytes of our industry to define how the Web is dramatically impacting the very course of humanity.

Author Blurb Jeff Papows, President and CEO, Lotus Development Corp.
Tim Berners-Lee is the most qualified person on the planet to chronicle the Web. With the introspection and concern only a parent can truly express, he reaches beyond the common soundbytes of our industry to define how the Web is dramatically impacting the very course of humanity.

Author Blurb Lew Wilks, President, Internet & Multimedia Markets, Qwest
Anyone who needs to understand the most fundamental change in society since the Industrial Revolution must read Weaving the Web. It is the definitive book on where the Internet has been and where it is going by the person most responsible for its creation.

Author Blurb Michael Dertouzos, Director, MIT Laboratory for Computer Science
A compelling combination of techno-history and visionary philosophy.

Reader Reviews

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