Summary
This Scientific American article argued that the Web should carry structured, machine-readable meaning so software agents could act on data — booking, comparing, reasoning — rather than merely displaying pages for humans. It introduced the broad public to the idea of data with explicit semantics.
Why it matters
The Semantic Web is the bridge era in the Web 1.0 → 4.0 framing: the move from a read-write web toward one where agents read and act. The Independent Internet extends this with the missing axis — control over the compute and data those agents touch. Authored by Berners-Lee.
Part of the AP0110.ORG source library. See the wiki overview.