SSL

Seems to me that Tim O’Reilly’s look at what he (and others) are calling Web 2.0 overlooks perhaps the most important contribution that Netscape (and others) made during the 1.0 era:

SSL.Initially developed by Netscape (beginning just eleven years ago) and contributed to the Internet standards process and the public domain, SSL enabled users to trust the security of their browser sessions. Without SSL (or, perhaps even worse, with an SSL developed and held captive by an intellectual property hungry company), the web’s first ten years of evolution would have been very different indeed.

So, what’s the right way to complete the metaphor: SSL is to Web 1.0 as ??? is to Web 2.0? Is that missing link identity-related?

Related posts:

1. Netscape/Microsoft Somehow it seems fitting
2. 1995 Netscape Annual Report