Over the past decade the Internet has expanded its reach to an increasing number of people all over the world (1.32 billion Internet users in Dec 2007) and is almost as much a commodity as the telephone has become after it revolutionized the way we communicated with each other.
The Web as we knew it in its early stages brought us: email, online information, online shopping, online collaboration and an almost instant global reach. These applications are mainly software based and even though the Internet relies on heavy telecommunication infrastructures, our only experience of it comes through our Web Browser (Internet Explorer for example) and our Email Client (Outlook Express for example).
