The author mentions beneficial and “ill effects” of the Web. Describe two examples of these effects from your own experience on the web.
Beneficial effects:
The web’s ability to integrate every piece of information has made me able to search for any keyword online to get the related information. This is extremely beneficial for me as a student in the sense that I can easily search for any knowledge or information to support my learning.
The web is also beneficial in publishing anything we create ourselves, as described in the article. This beneficial effect has let us create this blog post for our own documentation, and for the public to view.
Ill effects:
As big data nowadays constantly perceives what we like, it feels as if our own information is being snooped.
In order to “prevent children from being addicted to video games”, the Chinese government has put a limit on how much time children are able to play a video game. This corresponds to the point that “governments…monitor people’s online habits (Tim Berners-Lee)”.
In your own words, describe the concepts below, contrast them to one another and, if possible, share associations from your own experience on the web.
Universality & Isolation
Universality: Everyone, be it young or old, disabled or not, is able to access and interact with the Web in any way.
Isolation: Despite the universality of the Web, some websites are isolated from each other because they don’t share data. Any data that you enter into this website stays in this website, other websites aren’t able to get it.
Isolation, in a way, prevents the universality of the web from further developing. Not being able to share data with one another means that the data they retrieve from the users are limited, and they can’t utilize more data.
Open Standards and Closed Worlds
Open Standards: The standards that allow any committed expert involved in the design and are free for anyone to use on the Web. It provides users with more options.
Closed Worlds: Web that is only accessible in this particular web. You can’t link to any other website outside of this one.
These two standards are completely opposite. As open standards allow anyone to enter into this web and link out of this web to any other outside webs, the closed worlds on the other hand limit the users to stay within this particular web and there’s no other way in or out.
The Web and the Internet
Web: The Web is the application that runs on the Internet. It has its own functions like linking to each of the information it has.
Internet: The Internet is an electronic network that delivers data among electronic devices.
They are different in a way that the web is more connection-oriented while the Internet is more technology-oriented. Also, the Internet is a wider concept as the Web is an application of the Internet, which means that the Web is a part of the Internet.
The author talks about his visions for “the Web in the future”. More than 10 years after this text was published, identify the elements of his vision and discuss the ways in which they are (or aren’t) still present in today’s web. Feel free to also point out issues that have since arisen (e.g. the idea of “fake news”), and discuss how they might relate to the author’s vision.
The linked data that the author talked about has already been developed I think. A similar concept today might be big data. Big data nowadays is able to effectively interact and link with each other to produce new knowledge, such as in the science realm and the finance realm. It now serves as a key element in analyzing and predicting human behavior and many other perspectives. For me, big data corresponds really well to the linked data concept that the author talked about.
The drawback of privacy challenges also appeared just as the author predicted. Examples as some websites or apps are retrieving users’ personal information secretly are always concerning.
The “free bandwidth” that the author talked about is still a concerning issue. According to Simon Kemp’s article on DATAREPORTAL, 60% of people nowadays still don’t have access to the Internet. This is what we should be working on in the future to balance this inequality and support the development of the whole world.