Logging the Web

Created in October 13, 2022

2022   ·   ssw

Originally posted as part of the CMPE58H course by Susan Üsküdarlı in the fall semester of 2022 at https://medium.com/@furkanakkurt7642/logging-the-web-6a6a076605ca.

The initial proposal for the web seems like a technical document but it’s not designed for technicalities only, as its author, Tim Berners-Lee, says in his book Weaving the Web: “The Web is more a social creation than a technical one. I designed it for a social effect — to help people work together — and not as a technical toy. The ultimate goal of the Web is to support and improve our weblike existence in the world.”1 He uses the word web to describe humanity’s existence in the world, probably a well-known metaphor by the time.

Today, the word web is mostly associated with the Internet. It’s what comes to mind when somebody mentions the Web. web being used to describe a set of relations between documents and machines is a metaphor, likening it to a web of people. On the other hand, describing a group of people as a web seems to start around the first quarter of the 20th century. This metaphor comes directly from the word’s physical meaning of “a network of fine threads”.2

As Sir Tim says, the Web has been intended to have a social effect, so it’s no wonder the phrase “social Web” came right after the initial Web came into fruition. In 1996, Howard Rheingold, an American critic, coins the term “social Web”.3

Now a big part of this social Web, social media sites begin after a popular diary community Open Diary is founded on 1998. Blogging also starts around this time as “weblog” and the word blog (which is what I’m doing right now) seems to be from a compound of two words web and log.4 One year later, a blogger turns the compound in jest into a sentence of “we blog” and we’ve been using the word blog ever since.5

References

  1. Fischetti, M. & Tim, B.-L. (2000). Weaving the web: The original design and ultimate destiny of the World Wide Web by its inventor. HarperBusiness.
  2. define web - Google Search
  3. Social web - Wikipedia
  4. web | Etymology, origin and meaning of web by etymonline
  5. Kaplan, Andreas & Haenlein, Michael. (2010). Users of the World, Unite! The Challenges and Opportunities of Social Media. Business Horizons. 53. 59–68. 10.1016/j.bushor.2009.09.003.