There are now 882 million people around the world online reading more than 100 million websites, and with each website offering potentially millions of pages of content.

To mark the birthday we've drawn together a panel of web-users from across the world, to give us their thoughts on the birth, the worst, and the future of the web.

Though the internet has different pre-fixes to denote the various countries of the world I would like to see a more interactive and inclusive internet with high speeds especially for developing countries in Africa and Asia.

Webcams have been largely successful and made great use of by medical staff, video conference and by families communicating remotely. In Africa we can develop this to promote teacher-less classes in rural areas that staff may shun due to poor conditions of service.

We need to move in tandem with the world. The super powers have excelled so much with science and technology and need to tag the rest of the world with them.

High-speed coverage should be as common as electricity and radio waves. After all, one doesn't have to go to a "radio cafe" to listen to the radio!

Most people nowadays can barely remember how we got information before the web, and I think this access would greatly improve with world-wide, government-funded wireless networks.

It should be possible to be online just about anywhere on the planet, from Cambodia to Mauritius to Peru, without having to find an internet cafe.

The web will make it possible someday to make a global language, shrink bully governments, pacify wild terrorists, shy away racism, improve tolerance, correct biased faiths, save innocent lives, encourage people to shed weight and work out their bodies, eat healthy diets, be friendly and show solidarity, preserve our environment and care for all species.

The web can enable them to do this faster and far beyond the previous common reach, and know what is going on and where to go to from now forward.

There is not a specific recipe for the internet, but the basic rules always apply that new solutions and edges that have a positive effect stay while the bad side is always minimized or removed.

Technically there is not virtual or online life since computers do not type but humans spread around the world contacting each other. There is a technological trend going on saying that the web can be 3,000 times faster, and that CPUs can run up to 500 GHz.

While there is a need for the web to facilitate commerce, it may also provide the alternative economic solutions that reward workers and not owners.

Millions of people have been killed in the name of religion, but nature just asks us to survive and develop friendship and respect for life, and the web will help this happen.

In the short-term I would like for all features within my computer(s) to be made available through any terminal, anywhere and at any time, a step that is pretty much present to some degree through the internet.

The ownership of a computer might then become a non-essential matter and terminals are made available like street lamps or telephone boxes - mutually respected and readily available.

It might be interesting to see how the internet can be used to advance "democracy", in that activities like voting every few years might be a thing of the past.

Instead of the irregularities and flaws of the current voting systems, one might interact with a vast degree of detail concerning many matters, i.e. voting forms that offer a better picture of public desire by simply offering more variables upon those currently available.

Let's have Interactive Citizen Responsibility Cards where I am known to the government for selecting a drop-down menu on pub licensing laws and not my current whereabouts.

With such web-based technology one might see the advancement of a new global voting system, where factors that clearly concern other nations through foreign policy may include the voice of those indirectly involved.

I look forward to this possible evolutionary advancement where I transcend from my body and have it become a nostalgic moment of the yesteryears.

I would love everyone in the world to have clean water first, but I think they are more likely to get the web before that happens. But then at least they could learn how to treat their own water and keep it clean.

I think that it could lead to some big problems as market forces start to erode profitability in Western countries, but I also think it would be nice if the world were a little fairer.

I hope that by increasing everyone's understanding of the world there will be less conflict as a result of cultural/economic/religious differences.

I love the web and all it offers, but I hope that it does not destroy the book publishing industry because I think there is nothing better than a well written, beautifully illustrated book.

This is cache, read story here