Computer Supported Cooperative Work: The Journal of Collaborative Computing 6: 135–156, 1997. 135 c 1997 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands. Challenges for Cooperative Work on the Web: An Analytical Approach ALAN DIX School of Computing, Staffordshire University, P.O. Box 334, Beaconside, Stafford ST18 0DG, U.K. E-mail: A.J.Dix@soc.staffs.ac.uk; http://www.soc.staffs.ac.uk/˜ cmtajd/ (Received 31 July 1996; in final form 29 November 1996) Abstract. This paper investigates some of the issues which will determine the viability of the World Wide Web as an infrastructure for cooperative work. In fact, taking a weak definition of collaboration, the Web is already a very successful collaborative environment. In addition, it is already being used as the basis for experimental and commercial groupware. The paper takes this as a starting point and uses analytic methods developed in the field of Computer Supported Cooperative Work to investigate the reasons for the Web’s present success, its strengths and weaknesses as a platform for CSCW, and prospects for future development. Key words: World Wide Web, client–server, cost–benefit, CSCW framework, user-interface archi- tectures 1. Introduction The World Wide Web already accounts for more Internet network traffic than any other application, including email and simple file transfer. It is also a collaborative technology in a weak sense of the word – it allows people to share information. It is socially unique in that unlike the telephone system it is a broadcast medium, and unlike television and radio the users have (a large element of) control over what is published and what they see. Most groupware systems are developed for particular platforms and are only usable within the particular organisations that use them. In contrast, the Web offers a globally accessible, platform independent infrastructure. Not surprisingly, many people are looking towards the Web as a potential platform for richer cooperative work, especially as hypertext infrastructure has already been the basis of several groupware systems (Haake and Wilson, 1992). However, it is not clear whether the protocols, servers and browsers developed for the current use of the Web will be suitable for this wider use. In February 1996 a workshop organised by the ERCIM World Wide Web Work- ing Group (W4G) on CSCW and the Web was called precisely to investigate these issues and brought together many people who had developed collaborative appli- cations based on the Web. The ideas in this paper were developed partly to feed [25]