Alliteration: Technology

computer programmer
Ward Cunningham created a new

collaborative technology for organizing information on Web sites. Using a
Hawaiian term meaning “quick,” he called this new software WikiWikiWeb,
attracted by its alliteration and also by its matching abbreviation (WWW).
Wikis were inspired in part by Apple’s HyperCard program, which allowed

users to create virtual “card stacks” of information with a host of connections,
or links, among the various cards. HyperCard in turn drew upon an idea
suggested by Vannevar Bush in his 1945 Atlantic Monthly article “As We May
Think.” There Bush envisioned the memex, a machine that would allow
readers to annotate and create links between articles and books recorded on
microfilm. HyperCard’s “stacks” implemented a version of Bush’s vision, but
the program relied upon the user to create both the text and the links. For
example, one might take a musical score of a symphony and annotate different
sections with different cards linked together.
Bush also had imagined that memex users might share what he called “trails,”
a record of their individual travels through a textual universe. Cunningham’s
wiki software expanded this idea by allowing users to comment on and change
one another’s text. Perhaps the best-known use of wiki software is Wikipedia,
an online encyclopaedia using the model of open-source
software development. Individuals write articles and post them on Wikipedia,
and these articles are then open for vetting and editing by
the community of Wikipedia readers, rather than by a single editor and fact-
checker. Just as open-source software—such as the Linux operating
system and the Firefox Web browser—has been developed by
nonprofit communities, so too is Wikipedia a nonprofit effort.
For those who challenge this model of development, Cunningham and his
followers have adopted an interesting position. It is always going to be the case
that certain individuals will maliciously attempt to thwart open-source Web
sites such as Wikipedia by introducing false or misleading content. Rather
than worrying about every user’s actions and intentions, proponents of wiki
software rely on their community of users to edit and correct what are
perceived to be errors or biases. Although such a system is certainly far from
foolproof, wikis stand as an example of the origin of
an Internet counterculture that has a basic assumption of the goodness of
people.
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Now
In addition to encyclopaedias, wiki software is used in a wide variety
of contexts to facilitate interaction and cooperation in projects at various
scales. Manuals have been written using the wiki model, and individuals have
adapted wiki software to serve as personal information organizers on personal
computers. It remains to be seen to what extent wiki software will provide a
foundation for what some computer scientists refer to as Web 2.0, the web of
social software that will enmesh users in both their real and virtual-
reality workplaces.
Michael Aaron Dennis
LEARN MORE in these related Britannica articles:
information system: Collaboration systems
…of collaboration software, known as wiki, enables multiple participants to add and
edit content. (Some online encyclopaedias are produced on such platforms.)
Collaboration systems can also be established on social network platforms or virtual
life systems. In the open innovation initiative, members of the public, as well as
existing and…
Wikipedia
…a collaborative software known as wiki that facilitates the creation and

development of articles. Although some highly publicized problems have called
attention to Wikipedia’s editorial process, they have done little to dampen public
use of the resource, which is one of the most-visited sites on the Internet.…
Jimmy Wales
…a type of software called wiki, to create Wikipedia, a companion encyclopaedia site

that anyone could contribute to and edit. Sanger and Wales parted company in 2002,
but they continued to dispute who first came up with the idea of using the wiki
software.…
HISTORY AT YOUR FINGERTIPS
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Wiki
QUICK FACTS
RELATED TOPICS
 Internet
 Open source
 Web site
ArticleMediaAdditional Info
ARTICLE CONTENTS
 Introduction
 Origin and development
o Early networks
o Foundation of the Internet
o Commercial expansion
o The 21st century and future directions
 Society and the Internet

o History, community, and communications
 Two agendas
 The WELL
 Instant broadcast communication
 Social gaming and social networking
 Love and sex
 Advertising and e-commerce
o Information and copyright
 Education
 File sharing
 Electronic publishing
o Politics and culture
 Free speech
 Political campaigns and muckraking
o Privacy and the Internet
 “Getting over it”
 Issues in new media
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WRITTEN BY
Michael Aaron Dennis See All Contributors

Independent scholar. Author of A Change of State: The Political Cultures of Technical
Practice at the MIT Instrumentation Laboratory and the Johns Hopkins University
Applied Physics Laboratory, 1930–1945.
See Article History
Internet, a system architecture that has revolutionized communications and

methods of commerce by allowing various computer networks around the
world to interconnect. Sometimes referred to as a “network of networks,” the
Internet emerged in the United States in the 1970s but did not become visible
to the general public until the early 1990s. By 2020, approximately 4.5 billion
people, or more than half of the world’s population, were estimated to have
access to the Internet.
TOP QUESTIONS
What is the Internet?
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computer programmer

Ward Cunningham created a new

Wikis were inspired in part by Apple’s HyperCard program, which allowed

Get a Britannica Premium subscription and gain access to exclusive content.Subscribe

Michael Aaron Dennis

LEARN MORE in these related Britannica articles:

information system: Collaboration systems

…a collaborative software known as wiki that facilitates the creation and

…a type of software called wiki, to create Wikipedia, a companion encyclopaedia site

HISTORY AT YOUR FINGERTIPS

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 Origin and development

o Foundation of the Internet

o The 21st century and future directions

 Society and the Internet

Michael Aaron Dennis See All Contributors

See Article History

Internet, a system architecture that has revolutionized communications and

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