It celebrates its 21st birthday this year, but is the World Wide Web growing up? From e-mailing, search engines and file sharing to the dotcom bubble, the emergence of Google and, most recently, the creation of social media, the digital landscape has had many landmarks, but few ask what it has actually achieved.
Is social media the "killer app" of the web? Or is it mobile working? Perhaps it's e-commerce, something many of us use it for every day.
"The greatest achievement of the web is the fundamental shift in access to and control of knowledge," says Peter Chadha, founder of DrPete, a firm of independent strategic technology advisers.
He picks out Wikipedia as best embodying this new global spirit of collaboration, where anyone can be an author and effectively take control of the resource.
"This is a seismic change from pre-web, where knowledge was held and controlled by those who 'knew better'," says Chadha. "The web has enabled the dissemination of knowledge across the globe, and this has led to a knowledge-based economy and democratisation of the world."
Social media platforms such as Twitter are now being used to communicate so quickly and effectively that they can galvanise demonstrations and mass gatherings, for instance, in Cairo's Tahrir Square during last year's Arab spring uprising against Egypt's Mubarak government.
