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Most internet experts agree it is impossible to peg down the World Wide Web's exact birthday. The internet was a work in progress long before the web was born - and even longer before it caught on with the general public.

But one date - August 6, 1991 - stands out. On that day, Tim Berners-Lee at the Cern physics laboratory near Geneva sent out his famous message on a hypertext discussion group to let people know of a new computer code beginning with http://.

His initial idea was to give researchers access to information, free of charge, through a simple computer browser.

Today, a decade and a half later, the web is a tool that people use daily to work, research, pay bills, shop, send messages and voice their opinions. Web access has also moved from the desktop to mobile phones - something you can stick in your pocket and take with you wherever you go.

Regular citizens with camera phones have turned into news photographers, generating web content at breaking events, as seen during the Southeast Asian tsunami and London terrorist attacks when people used their phones to upload photos and text to news agencies and blogs.

Some even manage to bring instant fame to their babies and pets when a major news outlet such as BBC or CNN picks up a feature photo sent via the phone.

"The Web has made it possible for ordinary people to browse and contribute to a vast amount of information," says Mark Jefford-Baker, a business innovation manager at Ericsson Multimedia Solutions. "Web access via mobile phones extends that behavior."

Today you can download a web browser such as Opera Mini on most of the newer phones, if it is not already preinstalled, he says. Google is among the most popular mobile sites, allowing for regular web searches, as well as searches for content tailor-made for the mobile phone.

Other services, such as the mobile TV and mobile music solutions that Ericsson offers operators, also increase internet traffic via the small screen.

Just in the United States, nearly 35 million mobile subscribers used a phone or other wireless device to access the internet in June, a recent report by wireless industry research firm Telephia shows. E-mail and weather sites were the two most common destinations, Telephia reported.

Fifteen years after its launch, the Web is broadening communication and reshaping human behavior. In another 15 years, Jefford-Baker says, the line between the phone and the internet will be even more blurred.

"How you access the web will be even less important," he says. "It's what you do with it that will count."

Karin Rives
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