“Devastated” was the word used by World Wide Web creator, Tim Berners-Lee when he was asked his thoughts on its recent abuses.

This year, it’s estimated that half the world’s population will be connected online - surely a far cry from its early days in Berners-Lee’s head during its conception in the 1960s.

But, what have we learned now the World Wide Web has turned 30-years-old? Is it really as bad as its creator suggests? Or is it actually a force for good that is unfortunately all too often hijacked by people pushing political agendas, spreading fake news and inciting hate?

Here are my thoughts.

Google’s continued dominance

Google still dominates the web. It’s why I’m in business - and helping other businesses harness this incredible tool is what I deeply love doing.

The search giant isn’t without its faults, though. With a business model that relies almost entirely on advertising revenue, some of their strategies are rightly frowned upon, but, by-and-large, Google does an incredible job with its mission statement: to organise the world’s information.

If you’re a business, your website needs to be discoverable on Google. If you ask your smart assistance for an answer to a burning question, it will likely turn to Google. It dominates our lives.

It also collects an awful lot of data, and you may feel uncomfortable that it’s your personal information they’re often harvesting.

Google has an 88% share of the search engine market and handles over two-trillion searches each year. And that makes the data they harvest incredibly valuable. So much so, that it has turned data into a currency.

Whether or not you agree with Google’s handling of data, there’s no escaping the fact that they have largely been responsible for increasing its value. In turn, the more nefarious web users have used that value to create new forms of cybercrime.

Having an advert surface at just the right time for something you genuinely need or want is what makes Google’s ad retargeting engine great. But it’s also why we’re now so protective over and fearful of losing our personal data.

Remember when Google was nothing more than a useful online encyclopaedia? Those days are long gone.

The impact of social media

Wow. Where to start? If truth be told, this is a blog subject in its own right, and something I’ll talk about more during 2020, but social media has transformed the World Wide Web.

This is incredible when you think about its age relative to that of Google’s.

Twitter began life in 2006, and Facebook was born in 2004. Some of the new incumbents are even younger (take TikTok, for instance, which has only grown in prominence over the last twelve months).

Regardless of its relative youthfulness, social media has grown to be arguably more influential than the search giant. On the latter, we can find stuff and be sold to, but social media is something far more powerful.

As recent elections have shown, it’s capable of drawing in huge audiences and spreading either fact or misinformation. The problem lies in identifying the latter, which has become increasingly hard to do as more and more people have jumped onto social media and begun sharing.

Let’s put it like this: if your better half shares a news story relating to a party leader, you’re likely to take note, regardless of the source.

Despite this, social media is also a brilliant force for good. It can bring communities together, spread word about charitable causes and help find lost pets. Big or small, the campaigns that use social media as their channels stand a greater chance of success than ever before.

It’s also fair to say that social media - and, in particular, Twitter - has become the de-facto source of news for most people (I’ll let you be the judge of whether or not that’s a good thing).

China and Russia

I’ll end here, because it’s a thorny topic and one into which it doesn’t pay to get too deeply entrenched.

But, it’s important.

During the web’s 30 years of existence, we’ve also seen the creation of something called The Great Firewall of China (GFW). Enforced by the People's Republic of China, it is designed to regulate internet usage domestically in that country.

This has resulted in certain types of content being banned and the enforcement of ‘real-name registration’, where users are required to provide an identity card to service providers. Can you imagine that being the case over here?

And then, there’s Russia. Earlier this year, lawmakers in Russian began pushing a bill through their parliament that has been dubbed the “Sovereign Internet”. If successful, this will put them on a par with China when it comes to controlling the nation’s internet usage.

The WWW? This sounds increasingly like the ‘RRR’, don’t you think?

What have you learned the most about the World Wide Web in the last 30 years? Jump into the conversation on social media - let me know!