Chapter . Introduction

Internet time. A phrase whose meaning has come about as fast as it suggests; happening significantly faster than one could normally expect. In 1991, the first Web site was put online. Now, less than twenty years later, the number of Web sites online is thought to be more than one hundred million, give or take a few.

The amount of information available through the Internet has become practically uncountable. Most of that information is written in HTML (HyperText Markup Language), a simple but elegant way of displaying data in a Web browser. HTML’s simplicity has helped fuel the popularity of the Web. However, when faced with the Internet’s huge and growing quantity of information, it has presented real limitations.

In the seven ...

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