Preface

which most contemporary societies live, work, studyand, of course, shop.

a way to effectively share research documents across a variety of computer platforms. The Internet, with its complex, international network, was a very natural foundation upon which to house the technologies that would ultimately combine to make up the World Wide Web.

From its modest origins to the absolutely astonishing permeation into world culture, the Web, according to its father, Berners-Lee, was intended to be as much a social environment as a technical one. This idea might well have led to the fast proliferation of the Web, largely because it enables us to interact in many different ways socially via the technology, so much so that a new study of social networking has emerged to examine the social implications of the Web on society, and vice versa.