Evolution of web design in the 21st century

The internet over the years has progressed from being a simple military information exchange network between a few computers to one that encompasses the whole world today. The internet is pretty much a force to be reckoned with. It plays a major role in mass media, marketing propaganda and personal communication as well. With the advent of faster communication networks, more and more people are getting hooked to the internet every day. The internet has become a place that no one can ignore, especially if they need to meet a lot of people or communicate quickly and effectively.
Initially, the pages on the internet were pretty bland and simple, with just basic text conveying the necessary message. In the early 1990's the pages looked just like your DOS screen with coloured text as an added benefit. But as the years progressed, newer technologies started developing. HTML or Hyper Text Markup Language was formally standardised in the later years and that formed the basic framework for all internet pages of the future. Even today most pages are tagged with HTML. XML was another web design language that gained popularity especially for its custom features where users could define elements as they wished.

With web pages sticking to these languages as their background, newer technologies and languages were developed in making the web pages more attractive. Java applets were developed which helped create animation for web pages. Web design took a whole new dimension with the introduction of animation features. Similarly tools like adobe's Macromedia Flash added more colour to web page design. Other programming languages like CGI, ASP and PHP helped in making more attractive web pages that were highly interactive and user friendly too. The high speed broadband connections allowed web page designers to play with more animation, colours and audio.
If animation and colour was not sufficient, then came along the technologies to stream audio and video. Streaming is a process whereby the end user receives continuous video or audio feeds instantaneously from a provider. Streaming has allowed users to watch live video feeds and audio feeds as well through the internet. All these technologies like podcasting and VodCasting have made web page design pretty much revolutionary than evolutionary!
In addition to the colours, audio and video are the instant update web feed formats also known as RSS feeds. RSS feeds which are based on XML formats are used to update a specific user who has subscribed to a feed of a particular website, when the website is updated. This is very useful for news pages, sites of celebrities who want to reach out to their fans and other blogs as well. Getting instant news without you having to go searching for it has made RSS feeds a hit with ardent web surfers.
The development of web design over the years is clearly a testament to the human nature of wanting information instantly at his finger tips. Gone are the days when communication was through smoke signals and pigeons. Nowadays everything travels through under sea optic-fibre cables in packets. Web design has kept up with communication developments and engaged and entertained the user adequately.