HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO THE WEB - 20 years old

Author(s)
Colin Willett

Difficult to believe perhaps but the World Wide Web is now 20 years old. Has any invention, other than the wheel, had such a profound and lasting impact on just about every aspect of our lives? Probably not.

The origins of the web go back to the 1980’s when defence and academic organisations used a primitive form of the Internet to send and receive (entirely text-based) communications. In March 1989, Tim Berners-Lee, a scientist at CERN, the European Organisation for Nuclear Research, explained how the physics research community could easily share and search electronic documents.

Fast forward twenty years and the results and changes are simply staggering and, crucially, show no signs of slowing down. If anything, web pundits are predicting a second revolution based upon the web becoming “intelligent”!

And here’s a thought. Sir Tim Berners-Lee believes the web is still in its early stages and that in future, the internet will put “all the data in the world” within the reach of every user.

So how has the web changed our lives? Let’s start with shopping. When the web first started to develop as a commercial channel, many companies only used it to host their sales brochures, but not any more. Today it is almost unthinkable not to begin a shopping exercise on the web. Often this is because the web is truly transparent and consumers can easily compare the prices and features of just about every product and service instantly.

Similarly, travel and tourism have been revolutionised by the web. Package holidays still exist but the big difference is that they are now often packaged not by travel firms but by the travellers themselves.

One view of the web is that it has ‘empowered’ the world - it has allowed everyone to have a voice. And nowhere is this more evident than in the millions of blogs (online logs or diaries). The blogging phenomenon has been accompanied by the incredible rise of social networking sites such as Facebook and Bebo, and even business networking sites such as LinkedIn.

This is much the same with the myriad of online communities. For every interest, association or hobby, there will be an internet forum somewhere where like-minded souls can ‘meet’, argue and indulge. Take for example, the world of travel and tourism referred to above. No longer do we need to rely on the opinions of the travel companies as to how good a hotel or resort is. We now have User Generated Content (UGC) where holidaymakers themselves give their feedback and opinions. UGC is not confined to travel sites and blogs, far from it. There are now no businesses or organisations sheltered from online comment. News, both good and bad, can now spread globally in seconds at the touch of a button.

Perhaps the biggest changes for Birkett Long are in the ways people find us and how we communicate our services to the outside world. Although not open for business 24/7, we are certainly open for information 24/7. Search engines, particularly Google, are completely replacing all other information channels. It is vital that we maintain a sufficiently high online profile to ensure that we can be found. Having done so, our site visitors now expect to find what they are looking for and to be able to do so very easily. Our outgoing communications have changed and will continue to change. Our newsletters and emails are not delivered randomly. They are now based much more on individual preferences so that recipients only receive relevant pieces of content. Birkett Long currently produces six different newsletters each aimed at different audiences.

These moves to more personalised communications are not, however, likely to slow down. New technologies will inevitably produce new information channels which all firms, Birkett Long included, will need to use appropriately.

It may be a cliché, but it’s certainly true that nothing changes faster than change itself. These changes cannot be avoided or ignored and they may, indeed, be positive.

In the words of Sir Tim Berners-Lee:
“My hope is that these changes will produce new ways of working together effectively and fairly which we can use globally to manage ourselves as a planet.”

To find out more about the legal services for individuals, businesses and organisations, provided by Birkett Long, please contact us on 01206 217300 or advice@birkettlong.co.uk. Alternatively visit www.birkettlong.co.uk and click on the “Live Chat” button to connect to one of our operators. You will also find many of us on Linkedin.com.

Media
BLong newsletter - February 2010

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