In their own words W3C was created for the purpose of,

"developing common protocols that promote its evolution and ensure its interoperability. W3C has around 400 Member organizations from all over the world and has earned international recognition for its contributions to the growth of the Web."

W3C as a web site and organisation are probably the most important on the web due to the fact they create most of the design languages and protocols of the web, such as HTML, CSS and XML. Currently the most exciting protocol W3C are working on is XML which is playing an increasingly important role in the exchange of a wide variety of data on the Web and elsewhere.

Home page - W3C

News

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Berners-Lee knighted

Updated 04-01-2004

The creator of the World Wide Web, has been knighted. The reason Berners-Lee has been described as the creator of the web is because he developed the Universal Document Identifier (UDI), later to become known as a Universal Resource Locator (URL). This honor was announced Tuesday by Buckingham Palace as part of the New Year honours list. Berners-Lee currently serves as director of the World Wide Web Consortium or W3. Berners-Lee has wrote "The dream behind the Web is of a common information space in which we communicate by sharing information,".

Profile of Berners-Lee at W3 - http://www.w3.org/People/Berners-Lee/