World Wide Web in the context of Cloud storage

Electronic literature or digital literature is a genre of literature where digital capabilities such as interactivity, multimodality or algorithmic text generation are used aesthetically. Works of electronic literature are usually intended to be read on digital devices, such as computers, tablets, and mobile phones. They cannot be easily printed, or cannot be printed at all, because elements crucial to the work cannot be carried over onto a printed version.

The first literary works for computers, created in the 1950s, were computer programs that generated poems or stories, now called generative literature. In the 1960s experimental poets began to explore the new digital medium, and the first early text-based games were created. Interactive fiction became a popular genre in the late 1970s and 1980s, with a thriving online community in the 2000s. In the 1980s and 1990s hypertext fiction begun to be published, first on floppy disks and later on the web. Hypertext fictions are stories where the reader moves from page to page by selecting links. In the 2000s digital poetry became popular, often including animated text, images and interactivity. In the 2010s and 2020s, electronic literature uses social media platforms, with new genres like Instapoetry or Twitterature as well as literary practices like netprov. Although web-based genres like creepypasta and fan fiction are not always thought of as electronic literature (because they usually manifest as linear texts that could be printed out and read on paper), other scholars argue that these are born digital genres that depend on online communities and thus should be included in the field.

The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a network of networks that comprises private, public, academic, business, and government networks of local to global scope, linked by electronic, wireless, and optical networking technologies. The Internet carries a vast range of information services and resources, such as the interlinked hypertext documents and applications of the World Wide Web (WWW), electronic mail, internet telephony, streaming media and file sharing.

Most traditional communication media, including telephone, radio, television, paper mail, newspapers, and print publishing, have been transformed by the Internet, giving rise to new media such as email, online music, digital newspapers, news aggregators, and audio and video streaming websites. The Internet has enabled and accelerated new forms of personal interaction through instant messaging, Internet forums, and social networking services. Online shopping has also grown to occupy a significant market across industries, enabling firms to extend brick and mortar presences to serve larger markets. Business-to-business and financial services on the Internet affect supply chains across entire industries.

Internet access is a facility or service that provides connectivity for a computer, a computer network, or other network device to the Internet, and for individuals or organizations to access or use applications such as email and the World Wide Web. Internet access is offered for sale by an international hierarchy of Internet service providers (ISPs) using various networking technologies. At the retail level, many organizations, including municipal entities, also provide cost-free access to the general public. Types of connections range from fixed-line cable (such as DSL and fiber optic) to mobile (via cellular) and satellite.

The availability of Internet access to the general public began with the commercialization of the early Internet in the early 1990s, and has grown with the availability of useful applications, such as the World Wide Web. In 1995, only 0.04 percent of the world's population had access, with well over half of those living in the United States and consumer use was through dial-up. By the first decade of the 21st century, many consumers in developed nations used faster broadband technology. By 2014, 41 percent of the world's population had access, broadband was almost ubiquitous worldwide, and global average connection speeds exceeded one megabit per second.

A library catalog (or library catalogue in British English) is a register of all bibliographic items found in a library or group of libraries, such as a network of libraries at several locations. A catalog for a group of libraries is also called a union catalog. A bibliographic item can be any information entity (e.g., books, computer files, graphics, realia, cartographic materials, etc.) that is considered library material (e.g., a single novel in an anthology), or a group of library materials (e.g., a trilogy), or linked from the catalog (e.g., a webpage) as far as it is relevant to the catalog and to the users (patrons) of the library.

The earliest library catalogs were lists, handwritten or enscribed on clay tablets and later scrolls of parchment or paper. As codices (books with pages) replaced scrolls, so too did library catalogs become like handwritten ledgers and, in some cases, printed books. During the late 18th century through mid-19th century, cataloguing on paper slips or cards gradually replaced ledgers and books as the main medium for library catalogs, and in the 20th it was long ubiquitous. The card catalog was a familiar sight to library users for generations. Computerized cataloguing developed gradually from the mid-20th, and by the late 20th and early 21st, it had mostly replaced card catalogs. The advent of the web brought about ubiquitous use of online public access catalogs (OPACs). Some people still informally refer to the online catalog as a "card catalog".

Wiktionary (US: /ˈwɪkʃənɛri/ WIK-shə-nerr-ee, UK: /ˈwɪkʃənəri/ WIK-shə-nər-ee; rhyming with "dictionary") is a multilingual, web-based project to create a free content dictionary of terms (including words, phrases, proverbs, linguistic reconstructions, etc.) in a large number of natural languages and a number of artificial languages. These entries may contain definitions, images for illustration, pronunciations, etymologies, inflections, usage examples, quotations, related terms, and translations of terms into other languages, among other features. It is collaboratively edited by volunteers via a wiki. Its name is a portmanteau of the words wiki and dictionary. It is available in 198 languages and in Simple English. Like its sister project Wikipedia, Wiktionary is run by the Wikimedia Foundation, and is written collaboratively by volunteers, dubbed "Wiktionarians". Its wiki software, MediaWiki, allows almost anyone with access to the website to create and edit entries.

Because Wiktionary is not limited by print space considerations, most of Wiktionary's language editions provide definitions and translations of terms from many languages, and some editions offer additional information typically found in thesauri.

JPEG (/ˈdʒeɪpɛɡ/ JAY-peg, short for Joint Photographic Experts Group and sometimes retroactively referred to as JPEG 1) is a commonly used method of lossy compression for digital images, particularly for those images produced by digital photography. The degree of compression can be adjusted, allowing a selectable trade off between storage size and image quality. JPEG typically achieves 10:1 compression with noticeable, but widely agreed to be acceptable perceptible loss in image quality. Since its introduction in 1992, JPEG has been the most widely used image compression standard in the world, and the most widely used digital image format, with several billion JPEG images produced every day as of 2015.

The Joint Photographic Experts Group created the standard in 1992, based on the discrete cosine transform (DCT) algorithm. JPEG was largely responsible for the proliferation of digital images and digital photos across the Internet and later social media. JPEG compression is used in a number of image file formats. JPEG/Exif is the most common image format used by digital cameras and other photographic image capture devices; along with JPEG/JFIF, it is the most common format for storing and transmitting photographic images on the World Wide Web. These format variations are often not distinguished and are simply called JPEG.

Digital poetry is a form of electronic literature, displaying a wide range of approaches to poetry, with a prominent and crucial use of computers. Digital poetry can be available in form of CD-ROM, DVD, as installations in art galleries, in certain cases also recorded as digital video or films, as digital holograms, on the World Wide Web or Internet, and as mobile phone apps.

According to Saum-Pascual (2019), digital poetry is the artistic heir to the avant-garde movements of the second half of the 20th century, including Lettrism, concrete poetry, and conceptual poetry.

The 20th century changed the world in unprecedented ways. The World Wars sparked tension between countries and led to the creation of atomic bombs, the Cold War led to the Space Race and the creation of space-based rockets, and the World Wide Web was created. These advancements have played a significant role in citizens' lives and shaped the 21st century into what it is today.

The World Wide Web has become a major delivery platform for a variety of complex and sophisticated enterprise applications in several domains. In addition to their inherent multifaceted functionality, these Web applications exhibit complex behaviour and place some unique demands on their usability, performance, security, and ability to grow and evolve. However, a vast majority of these applications continue to be developed in an ad hoc way, contributing to problems of usability, maintainability, quality and reliability. While Web development can benefit from established practices from other related disciplines, it has certain distinguishing characteristics that demand special considerations. In recent years, there have been developments towards addressing these considerations.

Web engineering focuses on the methodologies, techniques, and tools that are the foundation of Web application development and which support their design, development, evolution, and evaluation. Web application development has certain characteristics that make it different from traditional software, information systems, or computer application development.

Web development is the work involved in developing a website for the Internet (World Wide Web) or an intranet (a private network). Web development can range from developing a simple single static page of plain text to complex web applications, electronic businesses, and social network services. A more comprehensive list of tasks to which Web development commonly refers, may include Web engineering, Web design, Web content development, client liaison, client-side/server-side scripting, Web server and network security configuration, and e-commerce development.

Among Web professionals, "Web development" usually refers to the main non-design aspects of building Web sites: writing markup and coding. Web development may use content management systems (CMS) to make content changes easier and available with basic technical skills.

Web accessibility, or eAccessibility, is the inclusive practice of ensuring there are no barriers that prevent interaction with, or access to, websites on the World Wide Web by people with physical disabilities, situational disabilities, and socio-economic restrictions on bandwidth and speed. When sites are correctly designed, developed and edited, more users have equal access to information and functionality.

For example, when a site is coded with semantically meaningful HTML, with textual equivalents provided for images and with links named meaningfully, this helps blind users using text-to-speech software and/or text-to-Braille hardware. When text and images are large and/or enlargeable, it is easier for users with poor sight to read and understand the content. When links are underlined (or otherwise differentiated) as well as colored, this ensures that color blind users will be able to notice them. When clickable links and areas are large, this helps users who cannot control a mouse with precision. When pages are not coded in a way that hinders navigation by means of the keyboard alone, or a single switch access device alone, this helps users who cannot use a mouse or even a standard keyboard. When videos are closed captioned, chaptered, or a sign language version is available, deaf and hard-of-hearing users can understand the video. When flashing effects are avoided or made optional, users prone to seizures caused by these effects are not put at risk. And when content is written in plain language and illustrated with instructional diagrams and animations, users with dyslexia and learning difficulties are better able to understand the content. When sites are correctly built and maintained, all of these users can be accommodated without decreasing the usability of the site for non-disabled users.

A soapbox is a raised platform on which one stands to make an impromptu speech, often about a political subject. The term originates from the days when speakers would elevate themselves by standing on a wooden crate originally used for shipment of soap, or other dry goods, from a manufacturer to a retail store.

The term is also used metaphorically to describe a person engaging in often flamboyant, impromptu, or unofficial public speaking. Hyde Park in London is known for its Sunday soapbox orators, who have assembled at its Speakers' Corner since 1872 to discuss religion, politics, and other topics. In the context of the World Wide Web, blogs can be used as soapboxes and are often used for promotional purposes.

JavaScript (JS) is a programming language and core technology of the Web, alongside HTML and CSS. It was created by Brendan Eich in 1995. Ninety-nine percent of websites use JavaScript on the client side for webpage behavior.

Web browsers have a dedicated JavaScript engine that executes the client code. These engines are also utilized in some servers and a variety of apps. The most popular runtime system for non-browser usage is Node.js.

Hypertext is text displayed on a computer display or other electronic devices with references (hyperlinks) to other text that the reader can immediately access. Hypertext documents are interconnected by hyperlinks, which are typically activated by a mouse click, keypress set, or screen touch. Apart from text, the term "hypertext" is also used to describe tables, images, and other presentational materials with integrated hyperlinks. Hypertext is one of the key underlying concepts of the World Wide Web, where Web pages are often written in the Hypertext Markup Language (HTML). As implemented on the Web, hypertext enables the easy-to-use publication of information over the Internet.

A web application (or web app) is application software that is created with web technologies and runs via a web browser. Web applications emerged during the late 1990s and allowed for the server to dynamically build a response to the request, in contrast to static web pages.

Web applications are commonly distributed via a web server. There are several different tier systems that web applications use to communicate between the web browsers, the client interface, and server data. Each system has its own uses as they function in different ways. However, there are many security risks that developers must be aware of during development; proper measures to protect user data are vital.

Slightly over half of the homepages of the most visited websites on the World Wide Web are in English, with varying amounts of information available in many other languages. Other top languages are Chinese, Spanish, Russian, Portuguese, French, German and Japanese.

Of the more than 7,000 existing languages, only a few hundred are recognized as being in use for Web pages on the World Wide Web.

An online magazine is a magazine published on the Internet, through bulletin board systems and other forms of public computer networks. One of the first magazines to convert from a print magazine format to an online only magazine was the computer magazine Datamation. Some online magazines distributed through the World Wide Web call themselves webzines. An ezine (also spelled e-zine) is a more specialized term appropriately used for small magazines and newsletters distributed by any electronic method, for example, by email.

Some social groups may use the terms cyberzine and hyperzine when referring to electronically distributed resources. Similarly, some online magazines may refer to themselves as "electronic magazines", "digital magazines", or "e-magazines" to reflect their readership demographics or to capture alternative terms and spellings in online searches. An online magazine shares some features with a blog and also with online newspapers, but can usually be distinguished by its approach to editorial control. Magazines typically have editors or editorial boards who review submissions and perform a quality control function to ensure that all material meets the expectations of the publishers (those investing time or money in its production) and the readership.

An online encyclopedia, also called an Internet encyclopedia, is a digital encyclopedia accessible through the Internet. Some examples include pre-World Wide Web services that offered the Academic American Encyclopedia beginning in 1980, Encyclopedia.com since 1998, Encarta from 2000 to 2009, Wikipedia since 2001, and Encyclopædia Britannica since 2016.

The 1990s (often referred and shortened to as "the '90s" or "the Nineties") was the decade that began on 1 January 1990, and ended on 31 December 1999. Known as the "post-Cold War decade", the 1990s were culturally imagined as the period from the Revolutions of 1989 until the September 11 attacks in 2001. The dissolution of the Soviet Union marked the end of Russia's status as a superpower, the end of a multipolar world, and the rise of anti-Western sentiment. China was still recovering from a politically and economically turbulent period. This allowed the US to emerge as the world's sole superpower, creating relative peace and prosperity for many western countries. During this decade, the world population grew from 5.3 to 6.1 billion.

The decade saw greater attention to multiculturalism and advance of alternative media. Public education about safe sex curbed HIV in developed countries. Generation X bonded over musical tastes. Humor in television and film was marked by ironic self-references mixed with popular culture references. Alternative music movements like grunge, reggaeton, Eurodance, K-pop, and hip-hop, became popular, aided by the rise in satellite and cable television, and the internet. New music genres such as drum and bass, post-rock, happy hardcore, denpa, and trance emerged. Video game popularity exploded due to the development of CD-ROM supported 3D computer graphics on platforms such as Sony PlayStation, Nintendo 64, and PCs.