World Wide Web Pioneers

World Wide Web Pioneers groups the computing pioneers in this atlas whose central, explicitly stated contribution concerns the early creation, commercialization, or popular adoption of the World Wide Web itself, rather than the deeper database and retrieval work the web is often built on top of. Members range from early web browser authors and web standards founders, through the designers of the first commercial and community websites, online shopping and web directory services, and the builders of the earliest metasearch and directory tools that made the web navigable before dedicated commercial search engines matured. Many built the web as a medium first, and only later did database or retrieval expertise become central to their work.