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A system for connecting together websites
relating to a common theme or subject of interest. Web rings let visitors
jump from one site to the next automatically, eventually ending up back
where they started, although they can also choose to visit participating
sites randomly. Such rings are popular with web surfers, because unlike
search engines and directories they more or less ensure that the information
they contain is relevant to a particular user's sphere of interest. They are
also of increasing interest to site owners and advertisers, who see much
potential in a self-selecting user base of this kind. The concept was
pioneered in 1995 by 17-year-old Sage Weil, who created
www.webring.org, once the web's biggest
collection of rings. Before vanishing into the noise at Yahoo, webring.org
contained over 80,000 individual rings, consisting of over 1.3m individual
sites. Web rings exist for every conceivable subject of interest to human
beings, and some that many people may find inconceivable too. Someone who
manages a web rings is known as a ringmaster. |
