WWW

I’ve been semi-offline for quite a while now. I took some weeks off to relax and enjoy the Olympics, so this is a short post to warm up my blogging fingers. (Not to suggest that — by jumping straight back behind the keyboard — I haven’t been inspired by the games, I’ve been running a hell of a lot lately!)

What better way to return by sharing an apt link and a small piece of history? You have probably seen this doing the rounds today, the World Wide Web’s “birthday”, but for those that haven’t, here is Tim Berners-Lee’s original announcement (someone I was happy to see in the opening ceremony).

This project is experimental and of course comes without any warranty whatsoever. However, it could start a revolution in information access.

“revolution in information access” — a bit of an understatement if you ask me.

It’s a shame that tech companies are so intent on ignoring such potential these days. With patent and copyright wars nearing no end, what chance do we have of seeing the next open standard truly revolutionise the digital world? Like many others I had hopes for Twitter becoming the underlying API for micro-communication. Well Twitter’s API change killed that idea.

I’m not ashamed to say I threw $50 at Dalton Caldwell’s App.net. It had only 50% funding with 48 hours to go and despite a heavy dose of cynical commentary it blasted way beyond the $500,000 target. Do I think it will be successful? I have no idea (follow me anyway), but I do appreciate the reason it exists. What I do know is that I’ll never be content with shoveling my entire digital life into a corporate-owned walled garden. We need more openness. True ownership and control of our data. A new web revolution in social networking.