In the old days (early 1993), people could impress their neighbors by mentioning that they had an e-mail address on the Internet. By late 1994, e-mail addresses were passe. Now even a personal home page on the Web is commonplace. At least one of my colleagues now has his own personal domain name on the Internet.
Your personal page should include a color photograph of yourself engaged in some hobby, preferably unrelated to computing or your profession. If a sound recording or video is linked to the page, so much the better. Thus, one reason for operating a WWW server is to have fun while maintaining your reputation as one who is conversant with the technology of networked information. As the fun proceeds, you will discover that there are good professional reasons for placing information on your own Web server. These reasons arise out of the original goals of those who created the Web.
The World Wide Web began at CERN in 1991 as a means to distribute information within the High Energy Physics community. People from many countries working in small teams needed a method to share their own information and to access information provided by others. Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of WWW, describes the Web as a "collaborative knowledge-sharing tool for a community." (Internet World, October 1994, p. 78).
Teachers, researchers, publishers, politicians, and shopkeepers are among the vast array of people who need to share knowledge and information among various communities. Thus, just about anyone might have a reason to operate a server. Indeed, anyone who spends time browsing the Web soon comes to the conclusion that just about everyone on the Internet now has a personal home page.
Teachers especially have reasons to investigate using the Web if for no other reason than to gain hypertext experience. A recent article in the "Chronicle of Higher Education" (Vol. XLI, No. 5, pp. A25-A27, A30, September 28, 1994) shows that some believe that hypertext could revolutionize teaching. Teachers can use WWW to publish syllabi and distribute class handouts. Handouts on the Web can be updated instantaneously and are always available to students in their dorm rooms, apartments, or homes.
The Web is not limited to supporting teaching functions. Researchers can share information among widely scattered colleagues. Companies can use WWW to distribute internal information and announcements within their organizations, which may have workers scattered around the world. Merchants can use the Web to advertise their wares. For example, people anywhere in the world can use the Web to order flowers from Wade's Flower Shop in the small town of Blacksburg, VA.