The internet moves packets between machines. The World Wide Web is something built on top of it: a global space of documents linked by hyperlinks, which Tim Berners-Lee invented at CERN around 1990. Keeping the two straight matters, because confusing the Web with the internet is one of the most common misunderstandings about how computing works.
The idea
The Web is an application layer over the internet. It adds three things: a way to name any resource (the URL), a way to request it (HTTP), and a way to write linked documents (HTML).
Invented at CERN
Berners-Lee, an English computer scientist working at CERN, submitted his proposal in May 1989 and had a working system by the end of 1990. He defined the first version of the HTTP protocol, the basic URL syntax, and made HTML the primary document format. Those three pieces are still the foundation of every web page.
The Web is not the internet
The internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks. The Web is a global collection of documents and resources, linked by hyperlinks and URLs, and it functions as an application layer running on top of the internet. The internet is the road; the Web is one very popular thing that travels on it. Email and video calls travel on the same road without being the Web.
Why it mattered
The networking, TCP/IP and all, was already in place. What the Web added was a reason for ordinary people to use it: a navigable space of linked documents anyone could read and publish to. That turned a network for researchers into the medium of modern life.
Related Notes
- History of the Internet, the network the Web runs on
- The Browser Wars, how the Web became a platform
- The DoD Model and the TCP/IP Flag Day, the protocols underneath
- Network Protocols, the layers in general
- History of Computing, the section index
Sources
- “World Wide Web,” Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Wide_Web . Supports Tim Berners-Lee inventing the Web at CERN (proposal May 1989, working system by end of 1990), his definition of HTTP, URL syntax, and HTML, and the Web as a global collection of linked documents functioning as an application layer on top of the internet, distinct from the internet itself.