Today is the day that has the world celebrating 20 years with the World Wide Web, and even though not everyone grasps the distinction between the internet and the World Wide Web, even fewer know about the original intent of Tim Berners-Lee’s invention.
In “Information Management: A Proposal“, the very first figure shows nodes with arrows between them, illustrating links — fitting for a document describing hypertext:
But look closer; the arcs have labels, describing binary relations! And the nodes are not only documents, but also databases and real life objects!
This is what the World Wide Web is all about — neither the Semantic Web nor Linked Data are afterthoughts, they are actually part of the original vision.
So now that you know, go fetch — it has taken us twenty years to get to where we are today, let’s make sure it doesn’t take that long to get the rest of the way…
Yes, and it sits niceley with this even earlier thinking from Ted Nelson (who always envisaged “Linked Data”).
Our next major step is to really demonstrate that Ted, Tim, and others are reinforcing the fact that we all see the same things in different ways. Concepts, rather than labels and monikers, are what matter when all is said and done.
Our individuality should be the key to our commonality. We are all so similar in reality :-)
Link:
1. http://xanadu.com.au/ted/XUsurvey/xuDation.html
Kingsley
“Our individuality should be the key to our commonality.” – it’s interesting. But… why we need this commonality? Could you explain, please? Coz in my view WWW is for interaction of individuals and not for making the world similar.
20 Years already? Damn, I do feel old now!