Four or five years ago, whenever you'd hear someone giving out a URL, they'd start out by saying: "H T T P colon slash slash W W W dot..." and so on...
Two or three years ago, the 'http://' requirement largely became deprecated. Instead, you knew it a URL was being given out because it would start 'W W W'.
One or two years ago, most websites made the 'www.' optional. For example, I typically use the form example.com when I want to enter the URL of a site...
...and more often than not it works okay...
... but not, (currently: 19/4/07), with open.ac.uk ...
Ho hum....
PS I don't think people even bother giving URLs now, do they? "Just google open university and you should find it..."
Posted by ajh59 at April 19, 2007 11:05 AM