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Foreword

Weaving the Web is a unique story about a unique innovation, by a unique inventor.

Amid the barrage of information about the World Wide Web, one story stands out—that of the creation and ongoing evolution of this incredible new thing that is surging to encompass the world and become an important and permanent part of our history. This story is unique because it is 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.

Tim's innovation is also unique. It has already provided us with a gigantic Information Marketplace, where individuals and organizations buy, sell, and freely exchange information and information services among one another. The press, radio, and television never got close; all they can do is spray the same information out from one source toward many destinations. Nor can the letter or the telephone approach the Web's power, because even though those media enable one-on-one exchanges, they are slow and devoid of the computer's ability to display, search, automate, and mediate. Remarkably—compared with Gutenberg's press, Bell's telephone, and Marconi's radio—and well before reaching its