What is the World Wide Web?

The World Wide Web is a way of exchanging information between computers on the Internet, tying them together into a vast collection of interactive multimedia resources. Thousands upon thousands of computers around the world are now connected to the web and offer a tremendous variety of information and services to visitors.

The web is built around hypertext and hypermedia. A hypertext document has certain keywords or phrases linked to other online documents. A person reading a hypertext document about dogs, for example, might be able to select the highlighted word "beagle" and call up another document for more information about that particular breed. With documents intertwined by links into a web of information, you can select paths to browse online resources, a process often referred to as surfing.

Hypermedia extends the concept of hypertext to other forms of information, including images, sounds, and video clips. A person reading a hypermedia document about dogs, for example, might select a picture of a beagle and watch a video clip about beagles.

The web subsumes previous Internet information systems such as Gopher and FTP. These resources can still be accessed through the web, but the web provides a wealth of additional capabilities not previously offered by these more restricted connection methods.

Web browsers

To use the web, you need a web browser, a program that lets the computer you're using communicate in the web's language with other computers on the Internet. For more, see What is a browser, and what browsers are available?

Creating a web page

You can also use the web to provide information to other people around the world. At Indiana University, you can make your own web pages that anyone with access to the web can read. Web pages are generally sets of text files coded with special notation called Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) that is interpreted by a web browser program reading the file. For more, see:

• At IU, how can I publish on the World Wide Web?
• At IU, what is Mypage, and how can I publish a web page there?
• At IU, who can have an account on Webserve, and how do I get one?

Email, Usenet, and the web

The web is not a particular computer or program; rather, it's a way for computers on the Internet to exchange information. For email, use a shared system computer account (e.g., at IU, the Cyrus mail system) and a workstation-based mail program such as Thunderbird or Microsoft Outlook. You can read Usenet newsgroups through some web browsers; for more, see About Usenet newsgroups.

Also see:

• What is the Internet?
• What is HTML, and where can I find a guide for creating HTML documents?
• What is a URL?
• What is Netscape, and where can I get it?
• What is a browser, and what browsers are available?
• What are web search robots, and how do they affect me?
• How can I search for information on the World Wide Web?
• What is HTTP?
• What is Microsoft Internet Explorer, and where can I get it?
• What is Safari?
• What is Mozilla Firefox, and where can I get it?