Web 1.0

Definition

Web 1.0 is often used to refer to the style of the web before Web 2.0 and the ‘bursting of the dot-com bubble’ in 2001. The term is mostly used to contrast the earlier days of the Web before blogs, wikis, social networking sites and Web-based applications became commonplace. These sites often included the use of framesets, spacer gifs and buttons, and were static web pages using the ‘top-down’ flow of information, where a webmaster would provide information which the users could only read. A lack of computer literacy and slow internet connections added to the restrictions of the internet, all of which resulted in these early methods.

Characteristics

  • Web 1.0 sites are static. They contain information that might be useful, but there's no reason for a visitor to return to the site later. An example might be a personal Web page that gives information about the site's owner, but never changes. A Web 2.0 version might be a blog or MySpace account that owners can frequently update.
  • Web 1.0 sites aren't interactive. Visitors can only visit these sites; they can't impact or contribute to the sites. Most organizations have profile pages that visitors can look at but not impact or alter, whereas a wiki allows anyone to visit and make changes.
  • Web 1.0 applications are proprietary. Under the Web 1.0 philosophy, companies develop software applications that users can download, but they can't see how the application works or change it. A Web 2.0 application is an open source program, which means the source code for the program is freely available. Users can see how the application works and make modifications or even build new applications based on earlier programs. For example, Netscape Navigator was a proprietary Web browser of the Web 1.0 era. Firefox follows the Web 2.0 philosophy and provides developers with all the tools they need to create new Firefox applications.

Technologies

  • The DOM

    The Document Object Model (DOM) is a cross-platform and language-independent convention for representing and interacting with objects in web pages.

  • HTML

    HTML, an acronym for HyperText Markup Language, is the predominant markup language for web pages. It provides a means to describe the structure of static web pages.

  • JavaScript

    JavaScript is a scripting language used to enable programmatic access to objects within other applications.

Examples

Hotmail

In 1995 Hotmail was introduced: the first place to get a free email address, disconnected from an ISP.

Geocities

Geocities was the most popular place where you could create your own free homepage on the web.

AltaVista

Search engine Altavista was the Google of the last millennium. The first real effort to index the World Wide Web. Since the advent of Google, however, their market share in the industry has dropped to almost nothing, with only visitors from old bookmarks.

Sources