Web technologies - past, present, future or The Web @ 25 From 25 years of history ... into the future or Why am I standing here? or Why are you here? Olle Olsson Swedish W3C Office Swedish Institute of Computer Science (SICS) “Monday talks”, SICS, Stockholm, May 2015 © 2015 W3C (2) Contents The web – a quick history Commercial attention Technology success drivers Competition and threats The future Some observations Olle Olsson: “Web Technologies” “SICS” 2015 (2) © 2015 W3C (3) The web – a quick history (History at breakneck speed) Olle Olsson: “Web Technologies” “SICS” 2015 (3) © 2015 W3C (4) History at breakneck speed 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 Olle Olsson: “Web Technologies” “SICS” 2015 (4) © 2015 W3C (5) History at breakneck speed 1989 1990 March 1989: 1991 1992 Tim Berners-Lee: “Information Management: A 1993 1994 Proposal” 1995 1996 While at CERN (European Nuclear Research 1997 1998 Center) 1999 2000 Primary audience (“use case”): 2001 2002 2003 Researchers (high energy physics) sharing and 2004 authoring documents 2005 2006 2007 Precondition: 2008 2009 Internet technology fairly wide-spread 2010 2011 1989-1991: The baby years; prototyping (web 2012 2013 server, web browser); internal deployment 2014 2015 Olle Olsson: “Web Technologies” “SICS” 2015 (5) © 2015 W3C (6) History at breakneck speed 1969 October 1969: Internet technologies Test SRI ↔ UCLA Two characters transferred … then crash 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 ….... 2015 Olle Olsson: “Web Technologies” “SICS” 2015 (6) © 2015 W3C (7) History at breakneck speed 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 Olle Olsson: “Web Technologies” “SICS” 2015 (7) © 2015 W3C (8) History at breakneck speed 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 Olle Olsson: “Web Technologies” “SICS” 2015 (8) © 2015 W3C (9) History at breakneck speed 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 Olle Olsson: “Web Technologies” “SICS” 2015 (9) © 2015 W3C (10) History at breakneck speed 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 Olle Olsson: “Web Technologies” “SICS” 2015 (10) © 2015 W3C (11) History at breakneck speed 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 Olle Olsson: “Web Technologies” “SICS” 2015 (11) © 2015 W3C (12) History at breakneck speed 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 Olle Olsson: “Web Technologies” “SICS” 2015 (12) © 2015 W3C (13) History at breakneck speed 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 Olle Olsson: “Web Technologies” “SICS” 2015 (13) © 2015 W3C (14) History at breakneck speed 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 Olle Olsson: “Web Technologies” “SICS” 2015 (14) © 2015 W3C (15) History at breakneck speed 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 Olle Olsson: “Web Technologies” “SICS” 2015 (15) © 2015 W3C (16) History at breakneck speed 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 Olle Olsson: “Web Technologies” “SICS” 2015 (16) © 2015 W3C (17) History at breakneck speed 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 Olle Olsson: “Web Technologies” “SICS” 2015 (17) © 2015 W3C (18) History at breakneck speed 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 Olle Olsson: “Web Technologies” “SICS” 2015 (18) © 2015 W3C (19) History at breakneck speed 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 Olle Olsson: “Web Technologies” “SICS” 2015 (19) © 2015 W3C (20) History at breakneck speed 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 Olle Olsson: “Web Technologies” “SICS” 2015 (20) © 2015 W3C (21) History at breakneck speed 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 Olle Olsson: “Web Technologies” “SICS” 2015 (21) © 2015 W3C (22) History at breakneck speed 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 Olle Olsson: “Web Technologies” “SICS” 2015 (22) © 2015 W3C (23) Commercial attention – Ups and downs Olle Olsson: “Web Technologies” “SICS” 2015 (23) © 2015 W3C (24) Netscape IPO 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 Olle Olsson: “Web Technologies” “SICS” 2015 (24) © 2015 W3C (25) Dotcom bubble 1989 1990 1991 NASDAQ 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 Olle Olsson: “Web Technologies” “SICS” 2015 (25) © 2015 W3C (26) Technologies ... Success drivers? Olle Olsson: “Web Technologies” “SICS” 2015 (26) © 2015 W3C (27) Technologies initially HTML 18 element types HTTP URL Olle Olsson: “Web Technologies” “SICS” 2015 (27) © 2015 W3C (28) Research community reaction TBL submitted paper to “Hypertext 91” … rejected. “Links in hypertext must be bidirectional. WWW’s are one way only.” “WWW servers aren’t aware of each other and there is no inter- server communication.” “All WWW servers are equal. There should be a concept of hubs.” “WWW servers don’t keep state. They are completely unaware of their previous interactions.” “It’s obvious that whoever wrote the hypertext engine doesn’t understand SGML. This HTML is done all wrong.” “Finally, he’s giving this away for free. That means it has no value at all. We have our own version and a strong licensing partner.” Olle Olsson: “Web Technologies” “SICS” 2015 (28) © 2015 W3C (29) Technologies initially HTML 18 element types HTTP URL Olle Olsson: “Web Technologies” “SICS” 2015 (29) © 2015 W3C (30) Uptake – socio-technical drivers (1) Piggyback on known technologies: HTML SGML 18 element types simplified HTTP FTP URL Domain name addresses + Unix folder structure (2) Open source (3) Content not compiled – “view source” Olle Olsson: “Web Technologies” “SICS” 2015 (30) © 2015 W3C (31) Was success inevitable? Obvious? Soundclip David Goodman, IBM:s "identity strategist" Interview at theconference "Digital ID World 2004". Worked with X.500 technologies (think “telco”) 05:11 - 06:49 Olle Olsson: “Web Technologies” “SICS” 2015 (31) © 2015 W3C (32) Was success inevitable? Obvious? At the time that that wrapped up would be the time when the web really took off, and perhaps the bubble and the all of the mania around that, sort of swept aside all of the requirements, and in the early days we didn't have a lot of bad guys on the net. So now we are coming back to a point where we were right before all that happened. Olle Olsson: “Web Technologies” “SICS” 2015 (32) © 2015 W3C (33) Was success inevitable? Obvious? It's an amusing and a painful anecdote about that. We had a meeting with our research community constituents in Zürich in Switzerland. It was a meeting between the user group and the X.500 group. We had joint meetings. This was at the peak of ... we were really growing considerably, quarter on quarter,in terms of the number of organizations plugging into our network that we were coordinating. Olle Olsson: “Web Technologies” “SICS” 2015 (33) © 2015 W3C (34) Was success inevitable? Obvious? A young Englishman who was working at CERN came along to talk to the user group, a guy called Tim Berners-Lee, who wanted to talk about something that he had created, called the World Wide Web. This was back in 1991. He gave a very interesting and charming exposé of what the web was about. And at the end of it ... we listened, we sat respectfully. Olle Olsson: “Web Technologies” “SICS” 2015 (34) © 2015 W3C (35) Was success inevitable? Obvious? And one of our guys got up and said: "Well that was really interesting, it sounds like great technology, but do you really think you'll ever get critical mass." And I squirm on my feet when I think about that, because we really believed that we were going to get critical mass, and this was just a charming academic exercise that was going to go nowhere. And in terms of lessons learnt, personally, that was a tremendous one. Olle Olsson: “Web Technologies” “SICS” 2015 (35) © 2015 W3C (36) Web technologies now Accessibility Amaya CC/PP Compound Document Formats (CDF) CSS CSS Validator Device APIs (DAP) Databinding Digital Publishing DOM Efficient XML Interchange (EXI) Geolocation eGovernment Olle Olsson: “Web Technologies” “SICS” 2015 (36) © 2015 W3C (37) Web technologies now GRDDL Health Care and