World Wide Web
The World Wide Web, also known as the WWW and the Web, is an information space where documents and other web resources are identified by Uniform Resource Locators (URLs), interlinked by hypertext links, and accessible via the Internet. English scientist Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web in 1989. He wrote the first web browser in 1990 while employed at CERN near Geneva, Switzerland. The browser was released outside CERN in 1991, first to other research institutions starting in January 1991 and to the general public on the Internet in August 1991.
Online health communities
In 1991 CERN labs introduced the World Wide Web, allowing a more graphical representation of the topic to be discussed. This change lessened barriers to communication and enhanced community building. For example, the growth potential from linear to geometric was made possible through this change in medium because audiences could access static content more easily without the author’s knowledge or synchronicity in time. Further, the graphical nature of the World Wide Web made the exchange of more medically relevant information more easily possible. Lastly, the widespread use of the World Wide Web in PC's made during the mid-1990s made the technology available to a much wider audience than previous technologies. By 1997, the World Wide Web was the predominate medium for "ad hoc" online health communities to form.