While enjoying another wonderfully sunny English summer with the kids (in between the days of torrential rain) I spotted that the Web has turned 20.

It was on August 6, 1991, that the Web made its debut as a publicly available service on the Internet when the first webpage was launched by Sir Tim Berners-Lee.

For me personally, turning 20 marked the mid-point of a torturous 10 year period. Mid teens to mid twenties are often described by people as a difficult age – that often awkward transition from being a child to becoming ‘grown-up’. It seems the Web is experiencing similar growing and transitional pains as it continues on its journey to becoming a mature and totally ubiquitous environment that is an accepted part of all our lives.

The current ‘social media’ fuelled Web has been the subject of two of the biggest news stories of the summer of 2011 – the horrific actions of Anders Behring Breivik in Norway and the rioting that broke out recently in the UK. Breivik’s 1500 page manifesto is testament to the massive distortion of history and creation of ‘hate filled’ propaganda that the Web can facilitate and help distribute rapidly with ruthless efficiency. Likewise, the involvement of what is estimated to be around 30,000 people from many backgrounds and cultures in several nights of madness in UK cities instigated it is believed by known criminals is testament to the ‘network effects’ this environment enables and the speed with which the authorities can be overwhelmed.

At 20 years old, the Web is becoming synonymous with a world struggling with debt, uprisings against oppression and injustice, rebellions with or without a cause and a platform for insane hate mongers. To what degree the Web is a catalyst for these events or just another mechanism for human nature to exploit remains the subject of debate. I have seen and commented on the ever present dangers of this environment many times before on this blog so none of the above really comes as any surprise.

When Twitter started to come to prominence a few years back, I questioned whether we were seeing the rise of ‘Mob Rule 2.0’ ? Subsequently I examined and experimented with ‘social media psychology and behaviours’ . And, at the beginning of this year, in a post entitled ‘I predict a riot’, I raised concerns about how we could see a rise in technology fuelled discontent on the streets in the western world in response to ongoing financial crisis.

There have, however, been glimpses of positive response and action to these sad summer events with social networking being used to denounce such nihilistic and criminal acts and also to organise cleaning up the damage and catching perpetrators. As I said when summing up some learning from the arrival and growth of the Internet age during the first decade of the 21st Century – “There is hope”.

One of the areas in which there is great hope and potential is ‘the Internet of Things’. This is enabling the Web to move from beyond traditional devices and helping to create a ‘smart grid’ that could offer much more efficient and sustainable lifestyles as some upcoming posts will explore further …