Message from the Chair of IW3C2
On behalf of the International World Wide Web Conference Steering Committee (IW3C2), I welcome you to the 17th conference of our series. As you already know, the World Wide Web was first conceived in 1989 by Tim Berners-Lee at CERN in Geneva, Switzerland. The first conference of the series, WWW1, was held at CERN in 1994. The IW3C2 was founded by Joseph Hardin and Robert Cailliau later in 1994 and has been responsible for the conference series ever since. Except for 1994 and 1995 when two conferences were held each year, WWWn became an annual event held in late April or early May. The location of the conference rotates among North America, Europe, and Asia. In 2001 we changed the conference designator from a number (1 through 10) to the year it is held; i.e., WWW11 became known as WWW2002, and so on. You may browse our website http://www.iw3c2.org/ for information on past and future conferences. WWW2012 is now open for bids, preferably from a host in Europe. The WWW Conference series aims to provide the world a premier forum about the development of the Web, the standardization of its associated technologies, and the Web's impact on society and culture. These conferences bring together researchers, developers, users, and vendors ­ indeed all of you who are passionate about the Web and what it has to offer, now and in the future. I wish to recognize our long-term partner, the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), who has contributed a significant part of the conferences' contents since the very beginning. We also appreciate the cooperation of ACM and IFIP, which makes our conference the best in the Web area. Holding the Web conference in China has been the goal of IW3C2 for many years, and we thank Beihang University to serve as our gracious host. Let us all take this opportunity to learn new things in technology, in culture, and in business!

Vincent Shen
Hong Kong University of Science & Technology

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