The Web ecology

Abstract

Exploring the laws of nature and the rules of human society is the grand challenge of sciences. The World Wide Web, its expanding resources, applications and users have constituted an enormous information sharing space. People’s daily life and work have become increasingly relying on it. However, it is still young compared with our society and the nature. What it will be in the future? Billions of years’ evolution creates the most elegant and efficient natural ecosystem. It will be ideal if the Web can eventually evolve into an artificial ecosystem that harmoniously evolves with society, economy, culture, sciences, and technologies. This paper proposes the Web ecology as the blueprint of the future interconnection environment, including its definition, scientific issues, method, and general architecture. The study of the Web ecology may lead to a new branch of sciences.