Journal of Computing and Information Technology - CIT 23, 2015, 1, 87–93 87 doi:10.2498/cit.1002516

Discovering the Future of the Web

Bebo White SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, Stanford University, Menlo Park, California, USA

2014 brought the 25th anniversary of the World Wide technology can and should. All too frequently Web. There is general agreement that it represents one buzzwords and catch phrases such as “Web of the most influential software applications in history and has transformed many diverse elements of human 3.0,” “Web 4.0,” “The Smart Web,” and “The interaction. The global impact of the Web would Web of Things” (a subset of “The of naturally lead to speculation about the future of the Things”) are bandied about, but in reality no technology and attempts to understand what has driven its evolution in the past and what will do so in the future. one can predict the future of the Web if it is The definition of and its implementation “left to its own devices” (no double entendre in- in Web Observatories provide a viable mechanism for tended). Wendy Hall and Mark Schueler (Uni- a more complete understanding of the technology and ) a paradigm for directing its future. Web Science also versity of Southampton have compiled an out- provides a powerful multi-disciplinary framework and standing graphic shown in Figure 1. (http:// compelling research opportunities. growthchart.weebly.com) illustrating the his- Keywords: Future Web, Web Science, Web Observatory, tory of the Web in the context of other techno- Social Web, Data Web, Web Engineering logical advancements and the exponential growth of Internet users. Hall and Schueler also identify the dominant ( / 1. Introduction areas of focus e.g., “read only,” “read write,” “social”) that the Web has experienced since its inception. Their graphic, while beautiful in its In 2014 the celebrated its execution, provides no clue as to the future of 25th anniversary amidst the fanfare befitting the Web except that it will most certainly in- a technology that has, quite literally, changed volve more data, more users, and more devices the course of human communication, social in- utilizing new technologies. For example, where teraction, commerce, entertainment, education might the “Web of Things” (a subset of “The and more. As the pundits analyzed the lessons Internet of Things”) fit? Some Web futurists learned in the Web’s first quarter century, it was have suggested that its future is invisibility or quite natural to ask the question, “What’s next?” pervasiveness where it “dissolves into the back- If the Web were a twenty-five year old human, ground” or integration such as Ray Kurzweil’s it would be in the young adulthood and would drive towards “singularity”. In both cases, that rightfully be asking questions such as (1) What ( ) future Web would not fit in the scheme of Hall will I do with my future? 2 How can I con- and Schueler’s Web evolution model. Some tribute to the future of my family and those who others see the Web as a platform for increased depend upon me? The answers are not exclu- ( ( ) social colonization expanding Figure 1’s So- sively or even largely about technology any cial Web) driven and monetized by the service more than, for a young adult, they are exclu- providers. Were this to happen, Web inventor sively about biology. The Web, like humans, is Sir Tim Berners-Lee might likely disown it in a part of a larger ecosystem that is affected by the same way that Gutenberg might have re- it and that it affects. acted had he seen pornographic publishing, or Obviously, the Web cannot ask itself such ques- the Greek philosophers if given the opportu- tions, but the stakeholders in the future of Web nity to comment on MOOCs (Massive Online 88 Discovering the Future of the Web

Figure 1.

Open Courses) and their impact on teaching and learning.

2. Understanding Web Technology Drivers

But perhaps Figure 1 does provide a clue to understanding the Web’s future in the way that it portrays the “dot com bubble”. This phe- nomenon is depicted as an “outlier,” something not predicted and indicative of unknown forces at work. It suggests that Web behavior is not strictly driven by its underlying technologies. This possibility will be discussed further later in this paper. In all of the 25th birthday celebratory discus- sions, it was largely ignored that despite the Figure 2. Web’s far-reaching impact, we are still observ- ing a “dumbed-down” version of the Berners- Web in the original 1989 proposal (http:// Lee vision. In his keynote address at the 1996 www.w3.org/History/1989/proposal.html). World Wide Web conference, Ted Nelson, re- sponsible for the term , asserted “your The elements described in Figure 2 show that the future is my past” when comparing current and Web contains social, authoring, editing, mul- future Web features to those already defined timedia, and semantic components. It could (though not implemented) in his Xanadu sys- therefore be asserted that during the past 25 tem. Figure 2 shows the configuration of the years when terms such as Web 2.0, “The Se- Discovering the Future of the Web 89 mantic Web,” and “The Social Web” have been • Web hyperlinks, like physical gravity, are used, that they are not examples of new tech- capable of extending great, if not infinite, nologies or applications, but rather new, previ- distances; ously hidden, components of the original Web • revealing themselves at the appropriate time. So The Web, like the physical universe, is com- like explorers of natural systems, the future of prised of diverse entities fueled by different the Web might already be hidden in its original forces and in constant interaction with one design. another and with unknown structures; In the mid-1990s, the discipline of Web Engi- • These entities frequently “burn out,” become neering was introduced (by the author with oth- irrelevant and lead to new entities; ers). “Web Engineering actively promotes sys- • tematic, disciplined and quantifiable approaches The goal of cosmology is to understand the / towards successful development of high-quality, entities, forces, and mechanisms laws in or- ubiquitously usable Web-based systems and ap- der to determine whether in the future the plications.” (Wikipedia). A goal of Web En- universe will implode or continue expansion gineering is to distinguish Web-based develop- until it becomes a cold, distant, lonely place. ment from the traditional methods found in Soft- The analogy between cosmology and “the sci- ware Engineering. It is also important to em- ence of the Web” is not intended to be frivolous phasize the importance of aesthetic and inter- and will be revisited later in this paper. action components in the design of Web-based systems, not necessarily found in software ap- plications. Web Engineering recognizes the multidisciplinary elements of Web technology 3. The Emergence of Web Science and encourages the involvement of diverse skills (e.g., psychologists, educators, etc.) on teams. Web Engineering foresees the In 2006, Sir Tim Berners-Lee, Dame Wendy use of engineering methods and tools to build Hall, and others founded the “Web Science Re- the Web of the future. search Initiative” (later changed to the “”). The group called for a new, There is, perhaps, one fundamental flaw in at- unique scientific discipline that focuses on “the tempting to define Web Engineering. Tradi- analytical power of researchers from disciplines tional engineering is built upon science that de- as diverse as mathematics, sociology, economics, fines the variables and sets the parameters con- psychology, law and computer science, to un- trolling development. Therefore, if Web Engi- derstand and explain the Web. It is necessar- neering is truly an engineering discipline, then ily interdisciplinary – as much about social and what is the science behind the Web? Is it Com- puter Science (questionably a science itself),or organizational behavior as about the underpin- a new science? ning technology.” Like other “real” sciences, its goal is to understand the mechanisms behind ( ) It is amusing and sometimes enlightening to the Web by incorporating all those disciplines think of the Web like the cosmos or physical that “are affected by Web technology” and/or universe. The metaphor of “cyberspace” has “affect Web technology”. An understanding of become a part of the common vernacular. So, the science “behind the Web” could conceivably perhaps the science behind the Web looks some- allow it to be truly engineered in a way for mu- thing like cosmology. For example, tual benefit. For example, if Web Science could • Both the early universe and the early Web ex- be quantified, it might have been possible to perienced a period of rapid, uncontrollable understand/predict the “dot com bubble” out- expansion; lier in Figure 1 and prevent a similar situation • This expansion has led to both visible and from recurring in the future. ( ) invisible dark components; Effectively, Web Science asserts that the Web • Expansion continues due to strong and poorly- can be viewed as a new (and unique) technical understood forces; and social phenomenon that cannot be generally 90 Discovering the Future of the Web described in the context of another natural, so- an engineering artifact expressed in terms of cial, or man-made (i.e., technological) science. standardized, collaborative tools and protocols In addition, it can (and should) be studied as (e.g., HTTP, HTML, etc.). A Web page stand- a single/growing entity (“in situ”) rather than ing alone is of little particular interest. The sci- strictly in terms of its underlying parts (e.g., ence begins to appear at the macro-level when computer protocols). If successful in these en- complexity is introduced by linking and shared deavors, Web Science suggests that otherwise services. For example, there is no rule in Web not understood or misunderstood behaviors of page design restricting the number of outbound the Web could potentially be controlled, man- hyperlinks beyond one. (Without one, there aged, and even engineered. would be no exit linking). Without such a rule Specifically, the phenomena observed in Web it might be reasonable to expect the topology of / Science are a result of scale, as illustrated in a collection of Web pages sites to be random. Figure 3 (from Tim Berners-Lee). However, there is observable evidence that the topology more closely resembles a “scale-free At the micro-level, the Web is best viewed as graph”. (Barabasi´ ). “Living organisms, when allowed to make freely willed decisions, seem to end up obeying some kind of mathematical law.” (Gandhi Viswanathan, theoretical physi- cist, Federal University of Alagoas, Brazil). Such observations might provide a clue as to what other insights might be extracted from the Web. In Figure 4 (from the work of Steffen Staab),the interaction between these micro-environments and corresponding macro-environments are ex- plored. “The Web becomes a gigantic informational ecosystem that can be used to quantitatively Figure 3. measure and test theories of human behavior and social interaction.” (Huberman, The Laws

Figure 4. Discovering the Future of the Web 91 of the Web, 2001). “TheSocialWeb”was The Web Science Trust now supports a global the latest element in Wendy Hall’s and Mark network of laboratories (WSTNet) conducting Schueler’s Web evolution timeline (Figure 1). research in various aspects of Web Science. Is it reasonable to think that the future Web will only consist of refinements to the current “So- cial Web?” What disciplines other than those 4. Web Observatories typically described as “the social sciences” are likely to contribute to the future Web? Will the “Web of Things” be similarly driven by social The latest implementation of the Web Science interactions between non-human participants? concept is the establishment of The Web Obser- vatory Project. It aims at developing a global The “Social Web” is currently very highly lever- data, analytics, and visualization environment aged by Web-based E-Commerce and Web- for the advancement of Web Science research, based education. Capturing the experience from ( ) and ultimately improving economic and social these two applications and others can likely prosperity. Given the ever-increasing streams of provide a greater vision of the requirements Web data, the Web Observatory positions itself facing the Web of the future and engineering as a suitable environment to study the evolu- solutions for maximizing benefit. tion and impact of the Web’s ecosystem, which Figure 5 is often referred to as “the colliding operates at massive scale and is dominated by disciplines” diagram. Its goal is to graphically unexpected, emergent phenomena and radical represent the intersection of the diverse research user-led innovations in technology and society. disciplines found in Web Science and the degree Earlier, there was the analogy comparing the to which they are actively involved. Web universe with the physical universe. Web Some of the disciplines represented in Figure 5 observatories peer into the Web in the same are obvious (e.g., computer science, artificial way that astronomers and astrophysicists gaze intelligence), while some others are noticeably at the skies, trying to understand the basic driv- absent (law, economics). Possible strategies for ing forces of astronomy and cosmology. Like addressing these disparities are discussed in the the “dark energy and dark matter” driving the Conclusions section of this paper. expansion of the physical universe, social forces

Figure 5. 92 Discovering the Future of the Web are driving the expansion of the Web and pro- 5. Conclusions viding its physics. It is the Web’s social com- ( ) ponent at the beginning Figure 2 that made The title of this paper is “Discovering the Fu- it unique, useful, and personal. Technology, ture of the Web”. This title is couched in the not a social component, was the basis for the belief that the future of the Web does not lie Web’s earlier competitors/peers (e.g., Gopher, in technology, but rather in an exploration of WAIS, Hyper-G, etc.) and perhaps that is why the processes that have driven Web evolution. those systems were not accepted as readily. The One of the dominant processes has proven to Web interaction model has now become an af- be the Web as a platform for social interaction. fordance for many software applications, even Continuing exploration can currently be found if that application is actually not Web-based. in the Web Science and Web Observatory ini- tiatives. Instead of being dissected into indi- Web observatories (like their astronomy coun- vidual artefacts, the Web should be viewed as terparts) should practice “real science”. In a unique single entity constantly undergoing a the WWW2014 (http://www2014.kr) work- metamorphosis. If these efforts prove success- shop on Web observatory interoperability and ful, the components of the future Web “may standards organized by Dame Wendy Hall, David reveal themselves”. ( ) De Roure Oxford University posed the ques- Such revelations are likely to occur since the tion, “How do we support research that is repro- Web itself “is a laboratory”. It is history’s ducible (and repeatable, replicable, reference- largest laboratory housing enormous, multi-di- able, retrievable, reviewable, replayable, re- sciplinary datasets and diverse effects. It pro- interpretable, reusable, reconstructable, repur- vides a vast playground for researchers to test poseable, remixable, reliable, respectful, rep- theories in the absence of other effects that can utable, revealable, refreshable, recoverable, and plague measurements or on previously impossi- reparable)?” ble scales. Like the observable universe (which now includes the observable Web), everything The “Social Web” has also introduced the no- is right in front of researchers. It is just a mat- tion of “social machines”. They are defined as ter of looking in the right direction, at the right “Web-based socio-technical systems in which time, using the right tools. Web Science/Web the human and technological elements play the Observatories can employ the traditional meth- role of participatory machinery with respect to ods of classical experimental science. the mechanistic realization of system-level pro- Web Engineering needs to re-align itself with cesses” (Shadbolt & Smart). This definition Web Science as opposed to Software Engineer- focuses attention on the way in which Web- ing. The validity of Web Science will need to based technologies serve to control, constrain, be reflected in the methods of Web Engineering. coordinate or otherwise influence an increasing Insights/data obtained from Web Science/Web number of social processes (Shadbolt & Smart). Observatories could then be used in engineering the future Web. There is a strong correlation between Web Sci- One of the greatest challenges to Web Science ence/Social Machines/Web Observatories and (and its ability to define the future Web) de- projects on Data Science, Virtual Laboratories, pends upon its success in building a multi- and Linked Open Data. Work in these projects -disciplinary effort (Figure 5). Those disci- would certainly be supportive of De Roure’s plines under-represented need to be encouraged ( “19Rs”. The sharing of diverse datasets hope- to build and share their datasets. An even greater fully as linked open data) is encouraged and challenge may come in the building of common, actively sought after. Like virtual laboratories, shared, multi-disciplinary vocabularies and on- these datasets are made available to students tologies. Researchers and practitioners from and researchers in multiple disciplines around diverse disciplines (e.g., Computer Science and the world, for practical experiments, analysis, Law) must be able to communicate with each and integration (“mash-ups”). other without compromising the richness of Discovering the Future of the Web 93

their individual fields and without prejudice or Contact address: preferential treatment. Bebo White SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory Stanford University Figure 2 illustrates the architecture of the Web 2575 Sand Hill Road proposed twenty-five years ago. Despite the ef- MailStop 88 Menlo Park forts to predict its future, Sir Tim Berners-Lee CA 94305, USA still maintains, “the Web as I envisaged it, we e-mail: [email protected] have not seen it yet. The future is still so much bigger than the past” (http://www.opening- ) BEBO WHITE is a Departmental Associate (Emeritus) at the SLAC governance.org/sir-tim-berners-lee/ .A National Accelerator Laboratory, the U.S. national laboratory for high- stated goal of the World Wide Web Foundation energy physics and basic energy science at Stanford University. Work- ( ) ing as a computational physicist, he first became involved with the http://webfoundation.org is to “lead the emerging Web technology while on sabbatical at CERN in 1989. Web to its full potential”. Achieving this goal Upon his return he was part of the team that established the first non- in a future Web will be a major task involving European Web site at SLAC (the fifth site in the world). Ever since, his the skills and talents of a wide variety of in- academic research interests have evolved in parallel with Web technol- ogy and he has become internationally recognized as a WWW pioneer dividuals and institutions. This task must be and visionary. He is often considered to be the “first American Web- conducted methodically and scientifically. The master” and one of the founders of the discipline of Web Engineering. Web cannot be allowed to shape its own future In addition to his work at SLAC, Prof. White also holds faculty ap- pointments at several other institutions, advisory positions on a variety – there are lessons to be learned from incidents of academic, government, and commercial committees, and is a mem- such as the “dot com bust” and the current de- ber of the organizing committees of several major conferences series. / He frequently lectures and speaks internationally to academic and com- bates on Web Internet spying and governance. mercial audiences. The Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) The emergence of Web Science and Web Ob- has selected him to be a part of their Distinguished Speaker Program. servatories are a great step forward in the effort Prof. White is the author (or co-author) of nine books, and over 100 of “discovering the future of the Web”. papers and journal articles. Additional information can be found at www.bebowhite.com and www.bebowhite.guru.

Received: October, 2014 Accepted: October, 2014