Waves of the Web

Abstract

A ripple in the water does not raise much interest or cause much concern, but breaking waves on a coastline call surfers for the ride, while an ultimate surfing wave, a killer wave, makes people consider how to survive the extreme challenge caused by it. In a similar manner, the web’s development can be described through the ripple, the breaking wave, and the killer wave.¹ But before explaining these “waves,” we need to understand that the web is an inherently social medium and that it had social origins from its very beginning, even though the amount and type of sociality, of course, has varied over time.