The Rise and Fall of the Worldwide Web

The serendipitous success of the Worldwide Web is its Achilles Heal!

The Web is primarily implemented on top of HTML pages which are plain text representations of the user interface and the data to be presented to the person viewing and interacting with the page.

HTML was intended for document sharing and viewing over the Internet. Now it is used serendipitously for just about any software application or service that one could imagine. The problem is, HTML was not designed for all these applications/services.

The plain text nature of HTML is great for search engines because everything is "out in the open". When used for public documents, this is a great way to share information. When used for things like blogs, it isn't always so great. I seriously doubt that most bloggers think about the fact that anyone can read what they are writing. People are exposing their private lives unknowingly (or semiconsciously).

In fact, anything a person writes that can be published on the web is searchable. Privacy is seriously at risk as more people use the Web.

HTML is also the source of more scams than I can count.

I can go on and on about what is bad about the fundamental technical basis for the Web, but the main point is that it is based on some very weak technologies. Unless there are some fundamental technology shifts, I believe the next Dot Bomb will revolved around the extensive potential for the misuse of information that the current technologies permit.

Imagine if the Web was based on a technology that clearly separated the user interface from the data and the data was always transmitted over secure channels. Imagine a search system that can only use voluntarily submitted data.

I want to create an alternate, safe, worldwide web based on such a model.