The net result
A decade later, the Web connects us worldwide
By Curtis Pond
August 14, 2000

Blue hypertext – the links we use to access documents – spun the World Wide Web. Word of mouth wove it. In 1993, Linda Fischetti, MS, RN, noticed a young man in the oncology/ HIV unit pecking away at a laptop computer in his bed. She asked him what he was up to.

"He got out of bed, brought his IV pole and sat me down [in front of] the only computer in the unit that had Internet access. We had a wonderful time. He was pleased at how amazed I was.

"Within a week, I passed the knowledge on to a father who was frantically trying to track down Phase 1 treatment for his child. The ability to have control of his own information was wonderfully comforting to this father. He felt he was doing everything that could possibly be done for his child."

It will be 10 years in October since programmer Tim Berners-Lee began work on a computer application to give users the ability to search for documents on the Internet, a network of cables that allows computers to communicate with each other.

Berners-Lee initially called the program Mine of Information. Had that name stuck, we might be typing "http://moi.whatever.com" when visiting our favorite Web sites. But Berners-Lee scrapped the idea, opting instead for World Wide Web.

Now, we surf the Web, instead of "digging the mine." In hindsight, other potential names ring just as laughable. The Information Mine (TIM), for instance, is a pat-on-the-back acronym for the program’s maker. Ten years have passed and WWW, not TIM, is synonymous with instant access to anything at anytime. How else can we watch a live feed of a taxi driver’s back seat and view Bob Newhart’s stats from "Battle of the Network Stars" at midnight?

But still you may be wondering, "What exactly is the Web?" In a 1998 interview, Berners-Lee explained:

"The Web is an imaginary space of information. On the Net, you find computers; on the Web, you find documents, sounds, videos. The Web exists because of programs that communicate between computers on the Net. The Web made the Net useful because people are really interested in information and don’t really want to have to know about computers and cables."

The first modem connected at a snail’s pace of 1200 bps (bytes per second). Kathleen Smith, MScEd, RN, flew onto the Web about 1994 with a 28.8 kbps (kilobytes) modem. Today, a 28.8 modem has about all the pizazz of watching skin grow on soup.

"I used it primarily for searches on informatics articles and looking for sample sites of software, ergonomic issues, requirements, definitions, etc.," Smith said. " I also used the Web for genealogy searching and information gathering for leisure travel."

With the proliferation of the Web, the public’s craving for information has been directed toward the health care industry.

Cyber Dialogue’s Health Practice, a company that specializes in market research for the Web, estimates that 88.5 million adults will access health information online by the middle of the decade, while 11 million consumers already shop on the Web for health and beauty products. No other invention has had such a profound effect on so many people in such a short amount of time.

With patients coming into the exam room loaded with enough information to qualify for a bachelor’s degree, many nurses realized early on that information was power.

The first U.S. Web site was launched at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center in 1991. But who owns the title of "First Nursing Web Site" is difficult to determine.

Nightingale was the first nursing site on "Gopher," a crude search engine limited to specified libraries and sets of files. Some of the early nursing Web endeavors include sites created by the American Journal of Nursing, the American Nurses Association and the American Association of Critical-Care Nurses. Back when the landscape of the Wild Wild Web was untamed, users were thrilled simply by scanning reference material and chatting with other Web desperados.

It was then that Jo Ann Klein, MS, RN, manager of nursingnetwork.com, saw a way to link nurses to education. In 1993, she established the Web’s first nursing forum that offered CE credits on the National Video Network. "There were about 2.5 million nurses in the United States back then, and I saw an opportunity to develop a continuing education program on the Web. The only university that didn’t slam the door in my face was the University of Maryland. With their help, I set up the Nursing Network.

"Users could download database files from our site to collect the information they wanted. We had about 10 CE courses up when U of M decided their priorities were not in that area. Everyone got off the train, but I stayed on board."

It’s been a quick 10 years for those who took the plunge into history and got their feet wet on the Web.

The Web has taken people like Fischetti, Smith and Klein and intertwined their lives with so many others. After pursuing her interest in computers, Fischetti is a graduate of the University of Maryland’s informatics program and coordinator of informatics at a hospital that uses an electronic system to document patient records.

Smith, who began her trip on the Web with a 28.8 modem, said she spends eight to 12 hours a day online. "Now, I’m disgusted if I can’t get on at 50k and I won’t stay on for e-mail or Internet access at less than 44k." Klein still operates the Nursing Network and said she receives about 7,000 to 9,000 page requests a day.

"People don’t even stay on sites for very long," Klein said. "They find what they want quickly and jump to the next site. They don’t want to wade through all the garbage."

More than 1.5 billion documents are on the Web waiting to be opened. If someone had another 10 years to spare, they would have to read about 411,000 pages a day to see all that is out there.

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