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More from Tim Berners-Lee
A next step is the move to universal authorship, in which everyone
involved in an area can contribute to the electronic representation
of the group knowledge. - 1991
~~~
If it's good people, people will want to buy it, and money is the way
they vote on what they want. I believe that system is the best one we
have, so if it's right, sure people are going to make money. People will
make money building software, selling information, and more
importantly doing all kinds of "real" business which happens to work
much better because the Web is there to make their work easier. -
1994
~~~
I hope that the concept of the Web as an information space
independent of hardware type and location will continue to exist ... I
hope we will be smart enough to allow this evolution and never have
to suddenly stop, put a "7" in front of all the URIs, and call it
something else. - 1994
~~~
Reasonable competition speeds the pace of innovation. Companies will
promote the proprietary aspects of their browsers and applications,
and they should. But the navigation of the Web has to be open. If the
day comes when you need six browsers on your machine, the World
Wide Web will no longer be the World Wide Web. - 1995
~~~
I had (and still have) a dream that the Web could be less of a
television channel and more of an interactive sea of shared knowledge.
I imagine it immersing us as a warm, friendly environment made of
the things we and our friends have seen, heard, believe or have
figured out. I would like it to bring our friends and colleagues closer, in
that by working on this knowledge together we can come to better
understandings ... The dream is that if everybody works from day to
day using the Web as their notebook, mailer and calendar ... then the
scaling problems of teams and organizations could somehow be
solved. This is a dream. - 1995
~~~
The truth is I haven't the faintest idea where it is going to be in five
years' time. When the Web as an information space becomes an
assumption, then it will be time for the next revolution. In five years'
time the next revolution may have happened on top of the Web. It will
happen within the Web. It may be mobile code. It may be robots
working for you. It may be people finding ways of interacting
politically. - 1995
~~~
What I see as interesting is the possibility that the Web will become
something driven by its data rather than by its programs. What you
see on your desktop won't be a function of what you spend at the
store for shrink-wrapped software. It will be a function of where you
have been browsing. As you browse you will discover interesting
objects and you will be able to download the code to make those
objects come to life, and behave on your screen or in a 3-D space in a
way that an author or artist intended. - 1995
~~~
The next thing for the Web is the death of the concept of the killer
application. It will be killer content. The idea of an application will
disappear over time. There is one possibility ... There will be a whole
mingling of components of software which won't be grouped into
lumps like applications. Even the operating system will become less
significant. What you will be interested in in your operating system is
something which will be small and fast and get out of the way quick. -
1995
~~~
It could be that some scientific field will be the first to be sufficiently
disciplined to input its data not just as cool hypertext, but in a
machine-readable form, allowing programs to wander the globe
analyzing and surmising ... The knowledge-engineering field has to
learn how to be global, and the Web has to learn knowledge
engineering, but in the end this might be a way in which again the
scientific field leads the world into something very powerful, and a new
paradigm shift. - 1995
~~~
Suppose ... all these minor problems are cleared up, would we be
seriously empowered as [Vannevar] Bush would like us to be, as a
whole? Let's think about scaling problems. Let's think of some large
numbers. The number of Web documents. The number of people in the
world. The number of neurons in the brian. We're thinking of lots of
things all connected together. Web objects, people and neurons all
have the ability to have random associations. The neurons seem to
work (on a good day) as a integrated team. The people do in parts.
The Web documents just sit there. But pretty soon the Web documents
will start getting up and wandering around. So when Web objects
become mobile, and start wandering around and interacting with each
other, would you now put much money on them making sense as a
whole? - 1995
~~~
As we move into the world of mobile code, of secure systems, of
network payment, the new principles are being, silently or not, laid
down. These principles will define the behavior of a new machine, a
new anthill, a new brain, which is the sum of ourselves and our
creations. Vannevar Bush's MEMEX was described as a complex
machine. We see it now as a cog in a larger system. We feel fairly
proud that we have built MEMEX-like machines. But now we have
links, do we know what to do with them? When it comes to designing
larger machine, we are still banging the rocks together. But we are at
a time of great creativity, of great potential for change for better or
worse, and there is a feeling that in fact we may be able to bring our
collective teamwork up to a level at which we can ensure our survival.
- 1995
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