Dear Friends of the Web …
Tonight, 14 September 2008, I joined Tim Berners-Lee in Washington, DC, USA at the incredible Newseum for his announcement of the formation of the new World Wide Web Foundation. Tim’s speech is online, as well as video and photos and a press release.
Many thanks to everyone who has helped get us to this first step:
- Alberto Ibargüen and the Knight Foundation for their very generous seed grant.
- The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) and Web Science Research Initiative, and the joint task force behind this project: Tim, Stéphane Boyera, Daniel Dardailler, Craig Heintzman, Rosemary Leith, Mauro Nunez and Thomas Roessler.
- Ian Jacobs, Karl Dubost, Ted Guild and many others from the W3C systems and communications teams for building this Web site.
The promise of the Foundation is to accelerate the Web’s advancement and growth around the planet. It is pretty exciting to be a part of it. We are still in the planning phase, and I expect to use this blog to share more information as we progress towards a full launch in early 2009. All those interested in becoming founding donors for this initiative are welcome to contact me at donations at webfoundation dot org.
Beyond financial contributions, what about contributions of intellectual capital? It would be great to hear your ideas on how the community that is developing the Web used now by about 1/5th of the inhabitants of the planet could contribute their time and skills to bring the benefits of the Web to the other 4/5ths.
Have a look around the new site. If you have any questions or ideas, send me email at contact at webfoundation dot org.
Mark McCarthy
September 16, 2008
Congratulations to you all on this exciting initiative. It is a good time to reflect on how we can make the Web work for all of those that do not yet have the opportunity to benefit from it. I encourage you to set up a way to accept small donations (micro-payments of a sort). Much like the political candidates have leveraged the Web for fund raising in the U.S.Mark McCarthyReliefWeb Project Manager - Geneva - UNOCHAhttp://www.reliefweb.intInnovate or become obsolete.
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David Orban
September 16, 2008
There is so much to be done! So much learning and understanding.First of all, in your formulation by the 1/5th about the needs, and daily preoccupations of the 4/5th. Too many times we get lost in the enthusiasm for the latest gadget, and get all worked up for some recent perceived grave violation of some online etiquette. The people who are not immersed in the world of technology all day have a very different set of priorities. Unless we understand them better, we will be very unlikely to come up with such fundamental advancements as the web technologies originally created by Tim.Congratulations for the Foundation: you have a great journey ahead!David
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Johan Hasselberg
September 16, 2008
Really great news. I am happy to see another step for a better World Wide web. I have been out here since 1999 and I really enjoy the Web. Big congratulations to Tim Berners-Lee, Steve Bratt and all other involved people.Johan Hasselberg / Data och IT
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Jace Voracek
September 16, 2008
This is excellent news, and the foundation will be a name that the whole world will know. I'm excited to see the upcoming events, and I'm looking forward to participate! This will make the Internet and the world a better place. Congratulations!
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Marco Rodrigues
September 17, 2008
Hi! Congratulations for the WWWF iniciative. For now, just tell W3C team to fix the current (only two) CSS errors found by their jigsaw validator.Thanks
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Sasikumar M
September 18, 2008
It is an excellent initiative and right on time and target. The concerns raised briefly but elegantly in Tim's speech are of concern to all 5/5th of the population. We are particularly looking at issues of accessibility and linguistic aspects in this regard, in my small research group at CDAC Mumbai. We are keen to contribute to this movement, in whatever way we can.
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Roauf Khalil Aqayi
September 19, 2008
Hello World Wide Web Foundation,I congratulate the initiating of web foundation and the Endeavour of MR. Tim Berners-Lee and MR. Steve Bratt and other colleagues for achieving the human loving goals.Although our ability in Iran is so limited, and we have a lot of social and economical problems, but I like to be useful you wholeheartedly.The speed of internet is very low in the most parts of Iran, and now that I write this message for you, the speed of internet is one KB per second and sometimes this speed is hundreds byte per second.The fact is that, only a few percentage of people in big cities have access to internet with a few ten or hundreds KBs but with a lot of expenses that, in general, the special centers have such facilities.Also, the progress of internet science and the web, in spite of the existence of 20 millions of users, in Iran is very slow.Now, I'm not able to help financially and I want to know how I can be useful for the achieving the goals of the web foundation.However, I prod aim my desire for translating the web site of the web foundation into Persian and I hope to deserve to be an active member of your group.Best regards,Roauf Khalil AqayiIran - Mahabadhttp://www.yoursite2web.com/http://www.yoursite2web.net/
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Herodotus
September 21, 2008
This website has been rated as Untrustworthy by the Citizens Intellegence Agency and all infornmation found herin should be considered Untrustworthy, Please Kindly block said web address so that neither you, nor your children accidentally contaminate your mind with any false knowledge found here. And for future cleanliness of mind, take care to note the author and distributor of such unsuitable content, for it must surely be true that everything from this source and associated with this source disturb social happiness.Yours KindlyMustapha MondThats how easy it will be, censorship is censorship no matter how pretty the think tanked words may sound- your blog, news site, flicker account could at any moment be deemed Unacceptable and blocked- I find it rather amusing that SirTim is working so hard to cripple this medium with "approved" content before introducing it to the third world- Perhapse it is because if the "net" didnt have a big enough spider on it, they may get a chance to figure out how one planet can be split up into three by the use of rancid bankers, Sir's gone wild and well meaning royalty who bless the boys before they depart to Mafeking.Hurry SirTim, make sure the Web is safe for consumption before it goes prime time so the sheep dont get word that tonights special will be Lamb Chops.
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Jeff
September 23, 2008
@Herodotus: Um... what in the world are you talking about?If you're under the false assumption that "web standards" mean censorship, then you're not only wrong, you don't even know what you're wrong about.Consider television broadcasts. In the US, the NTSC standard for tv signals is used. In Europe, the PAL standard is used. If you were to send an NTSC signal to a PAL tv, or vice versa, the tv screen wouldn't show what it's supposed to show.So when "Family Guy" is broadcast to American tv sets, it has to be sent in NTSC format - it has to "follow the NTSC standard". Which it does. Does this mean that Family Guy is being censored? Does the NTSC format impose restrictions on the subject matter of Family Guy? No, of course it doesn't!Web standards are just technical specifications that define how web documents should be formatted and interpreted. They do not impose restrictions on the subject matter of web documents, nor do they censor anything. Their goal is to make sure that any web document can be interpreted by any web browser. That's all.But if you actually have a valid reason for accusing Tim Berners-Lee of wanting to cripple the web, please share.
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Jesus Diaz
October 2, 2008
This is a noble effort, but it seems like another elite group that will exclude those of us in Higher Ed. who work for Community Colleges. For example my institution educates most of the future webdesigners and webdevelopers in the seventh largest city in the U.S. it is difficult to get the buy in for our students when this type of elitist organization will more than likely make it impractical and difficult for me and my colleagues in similar institutions to join and bring validity and understanding to our programs which are educating the underserved masses of the Unites States.Good job on another elitist endeavor!Would this organization be willing to take my $50 donation and possibly 10 years of knowledge in the industry? I seriously doubt it. I will have to continue to recite the standards in the classroom with no real way of bringing reality and practical application to the plate. On top of that the organizations that currently exsist lack ethnic diversity, what a shame! I can only expect that this organization will follow in the W3C footsteps.
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weblivz.openid.org
October 9, 2008
This is a fantastic idea. This is REALLY needed and we need to expand the beginnings of all web technologies from California! There are many of us that excited by global web efforts but unable to participate through no fault of out own.We need more input from South America, Asia, Africa and even Europe on the web. We need to be more connected in our efforts. Look forward to reading more.
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clie78787878
December 7, 2009
There is a massive change underway in the mobile media market as it becomes unshackled from the operators’ portals that have dominated it for a decade, all without having made any significant inroads into the content use of mobile users. The new capped data packages, fuelled by further competition, will see a total revamp of the mobile media market. It will no longer be based on portals but on direct services by content and services providers via open source phones and mobile-friendly Internet-based services. The next step is the continued emergence of m-commerce and in particular m-payment services.
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KIRAN SUTHAR,HSC
January 11, 2011
lets do more in 2011,and come together to do better things for theworld. KIRAN S SUTHAR,HSC
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