How to explain ‘this internet thing’ to friends
It’s now twenty years since a chap called Tim Berners-Lee first published his concept of the World Wide Web.
And where are we now? 47 bn web pages, 350 million different websites 500m domain names; a place where one company alone (Google) adds more than 20,000 servers a month to their data centers. We’ve got websites, blogs, photo sites, video, apps, email, Facebook, browsers, clouds, collaboration, open source, cookies… the list goes on. How can you explain all of that to someone who – up to now – has turned their back to the web?
Google have tried to do just that as easy chapter sized chunks in their new guidebook ‘20 things I learned’ about browsers and the web, in collaboration with illustrator Christoph Niemann. It’s not just for beginners, but for anyone who wants to ‘better understand the technologies we use every day’.
Google wanted to give the guide the same feel as reading an actual book – holding the cover, flipping a page – and have used some very smart HTML5 programming to come up with it.
Once downloaded the book can be read offline too.
So next time one of your friends says to you “so, I hear you make those web wotsits” you know where to refer them to!
Take a look and let us know what you think.
