WEB101 Assignment 1: Short Question & Answers

Q1: What is the Internet?

“The Internet is a massive global network connecting hundreds of thousands of computers together.” (iinet, 2010) The Internet is the connection between computers that form a network. It enables a desktop computer to perform real-time communication between different computers and networks.

For the Internet to work each computer is issued with an IP (Internet Protocol) address, “which governs the movement of the information, making sure it gets to the right place.” (Leaver, 2010). “TCP (Transmission Control Protocol) is a set of rules (protocol) used along with the IP to send data in the form of message units between computers over the Internet. While IP takes care of handling the actual delivery of the data, TCP takes care of keeping track of the individual units of data (called packets) that a message is divided into for efficient routing through the Internet.” (TechTarget, 2011)

“The Internet has no owner - no country, company or individual can claim ownership. Similarly it has no ruling body. This means that there is no committee to dictate the progress of the Internet or who may access it.” (iinet, 2010)

Q2: What is the World Wide Web?

The World Wide Web (WWW) “is a collection of files residing on computers called web servers, rendered in programs called web browsers, and transported via http (Hyper Text Transfer Protocol) over the Internet.” (The University of Chicago, 2010)  It is a many to many communication network. WWW software such as Outlook (for email), Fetch (for File Transfer Protocol [FTP]) and Firefox (web browser) are a few examples.

The WWW use URLs (Uniform Resource Locators) that tells the browser where to find a webpage or file. The most common URLs are http://www (web), ftp://ftp (FTP), mailto:user@ (email) and news://user (Usenet). The language that is the backbone of the WWW is HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language), which tells our web browsers how a page is to look. Another language used on the WWW is Hypertext, which is the “linking system that enables us to jump from one page to another by intuitively 'clicking' our mouse on a highlighted word.” (Leaver, 2010)

Q3: What is the relationship between the World Wide Web and the Internet?

“The Internet and the World Wide Web (WWW) work together, but they are not the same thing. The Internet provides the underlying structure, and the Web utilizes that structure to offer content, documents, multimedia, etc.” (Boswell, 2011) “The Internet's network is at the core of the WWW, and the WWW is like an attractive parasite that requires the Net for survival.” (dummies.com, 2011) Without the Internet, the WWW would not exist. They go together like a horse and carriage, and rely on each other to be useful functions in society.

Q4: What are three purported differences between the World Wide Web as it first emerged, and the more recent Web 2.0?

Web 1.0 emerged in the early 1990s where web pages were static information and could only be edited by its author/owner. The user had limited participation to websites. It was purely used for information retrieval, similar to a library, but all the information was available to the user with a click of a mouse.

Below are a few comparisons between Web 1.0 and Web 2.0

• “Web 1.0 was about companies, Web 2.0 is about communities
• Web 1.0 was about client-server, Web 2.0 is about peer to peer
• Web 1.0 was about home pages, Web 2.0 is about blogs
• Web 1.0 was about lectures, Web 2.0 is about conversation
•  Web 1.0 was about advertising, Web 2.0 is about word of mouth
•  Web 1.0 was about services sold over the web, Web 2.0 is about web services” (Barefoot, 2006)

Web 2.0 is about user participation and rich user experiences. With the introduction of social networking, blogging, wikis, and content sharing have made the WWW the place to collaborate, communicate and share with other people all around the world.

Q5: What is RSS and why is it significant to Web 2.0?

“RSS (Rich Site Summary) is a format for delivering regularly changing web content. Many news-related sites, weblogs and other online publishers syndicate their content as an RSS Feed to whoever wants it.” (whatisrss.com, 2011)

RSS is significant to Web 2.0 as it encapsulates the Web 2.0 concept of the incremental web. “RSS is now being used to push not just notices of new blog entries, but also all kinds of data updates, including stock quotes, weather data, and photo availability.” (O’Reilly, 2005)  RSS can be used for all types of purposes, but it lets the user be up-to-date with their favourite websites and/or blogs content and/or comments without having to visit the website/blog.

REFERENCES

iiNet (2010) “About the Internet” – iiHelp – iiNet.net.au. Retrieved 4th January 2011 from, https://iihelp.iinet.net.au/About_the_Internet

Leaver, T. (2010) Topic 1.1: What is the Internet? [Course notes]. Retrieved from http://lms.curtin.edu.au

TechTarget (1999) "What is TCP? - Definition from Whatis.com." Networking information, news and tips - SearchNetworking.com. Retrieved 4^th January 2011 from http://searchnetworking.techtarget.com/definition/TCP

David N. (2010) “World Wide Web” - University of Chicago KnowledgeBase. Retrieved 4^th January 2011 from http://answers.uchicago.edu/page.php?id=15974

Leaver, T. (2010) Topic 1.2: …And the World Wide Web? [Course notes]. Retrieved from http://lms.curtin.edu.au

Boswell, Wendy (2011) “The World Wide Web and the Internet - What is the difference between the Internet and the World Wide Web?” - About Web Search - Learn How To Search The Web at About Web Search. Retrieved 4^th January 2011 from http://websearch.about.com/od/whatistheinternet/a/worldwideweb.htm

Dummies.com (2011) “The Difference between the World Wide Web and the Internet - For Dummies” - How-To Help and Videos - For Dummies. Retrieved 4^th January 2011 from http://www.dummies.com/how-to/content/the-difference-between-the-world-wide-web-and-the-.html

Barefoot, Darren (2006) “Web 1.0 vs. Web 2.0” - Vancouver Writer, Marketer, Blogger, Professional Speaker and Raconteur » DarrenBarefoot.com. Retrieved 4^th January 2011 from http://www.darrenbarefoot.com/archives/2006/05/web-10-vs-web-20.html

whatisrss.com (2011) “What Is RSS? RSS Explained” - www.WhatIsRSS.com. Retrieved 4^th January 2011 from http://www.whatisrss.com/

O'Reilly, Tim (2005) “What is Web 2.0; Blogging and the Wisdom of Crowds” - http://oreilly.com. Retrieved 4^th January 2011 from http://oreilly.com/pub/a/web2/archive/what-is-web-20.html?page=3