ABSTRACT
The World Wide Web could be suggested to be the most important application that utilizes internet protocol and infrastructures. Hence, when discussing the ‘ubiquitous internet’ we should also inquire into the role of the Web within this ‘anytime/anywhere’ trajectory. For most of its history the Web has been a ‘desktop’ phenomenon. The visual layouts of websites have been designed and optimized for the ‘big screens’ of desktop and laptop computers. Yet, whereas the optimization of the Web layouts for other screenic devices such as game consoles, interactive TV, mobile devices, and even refrigerators has a long peripheral history, it has been the explosive popularity of advanced mobile devices such as smartphones and tablet computers that has in the last few years notably undermined the evolutionary trajectories of the Web’s representational forms as taylored for desktops. The Web has become increasingly multiplatform and therefore fragmented in terms of its visual forms and customized services. Yet, it is exactly this fragmentation—that the Web is now accessed and displayed anywhere and on any device—that makes it ‘ubiquitous.’
