Background and History of Websites
– The World Wide Web (WWW) was created in 1989 by Tim Berners-Lee.
– CERN announced in 1993 that the World Wide Web would be free to use for anyone.
– Before HTTP, other protocols like FTP and gopher were used to retrieve files.
– Websites were often presented as plain text files without formatting.
– The spelling ‘website’ has become the standard, replacing ‘web site.’
– In 2009, there were 215,675,903 websites, compared to 19,732 in 1995.
– The number of websites reached 1 billion in September 2014.
– The count of websites has fluctuated due to inactive websites.
– As of January 2020, there are 1,295,973,827 websites.
Types of Websites
– Websites can be categorized into static and interactive sites.
– Interactive sites allow for engagement between the site owner and visitors.
– Static sites serve or capture information without direct user engagement.
– Some websites are informational or produced for personal use or entertainment.
– Many websites aim to make money using various business models.
Business Models for Websites
– Posting interesting content and selling contextual advertising.
– E-commerce: products or services are purchased directly through the website.
– Advertising products or services available at a physical store.
– Freemium model: basic content is free, but premium content requires payment.
– Some websites require user registration or subscription to access content.
Examples of Subscription Websites
– Business sites
– News websites
– Academic journal websites
– Gaming websites
– File-sharing websites
Multimedia and Interactive Content
– Early websites had text and images, then added audio and video using plug-ins.
– HTML5 includes provisions for audio and video without plugins.
– JavaScript allows interactive modification of page content.
– WebGL is a JavaScript API for rendering interactive 3D graphics.
– The browser’s internal representation of content is the Document Object Model (DOM). Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Website
