Believe it or not, the worldwide web will be 15 years old this weekend.

"Can it really be true?" a Google spokesman gushed when approached. "It feels like it’s been here for ever!"

Yes, truly. It was only in 1990, on November 13, that Tim Berners-Lee, the British-born scientist widely credited with inventing the web, sent the first hypertext document through cyberspace. Thus the first shot was fired in a revolution that has transformed the way we read the news, watch films, sell our cast offs, gamble, order our food and drink, find our dates, write encyclopedias, steal music, commit fraud… you name it.

Indeed, such are the myriad possibilities thrown up by the net today, one might by forgiven for seeking a little guidance. And such is the fervour inspired, why not grace it with a spiritual bent?

So, it should hardly be surprising that we now have the world's first "Chief Internet Evangelist", which is what Google calls Vinton Cerf.

Dubbed one of the "fathers of the internet", Mr Cerf has been appointed to be the public face of the famously shy internet giant. In 1997, he was awarded The Turing Award, sometimes called the "Nobel Prize of Computer Science", for his work on the architecture that supports the web. Now, he is also responsible for flagging the technologies that Google will pick to develop its rapidly expanding product portfolio.

So, what, according to Mr Cerf, is the most exciting thing the internet has given us in the past 15 years?

"The most exciting thing related to the web, in my opinion, has been its use as a universal interface to an increasing range of applications," he said.

"Especially those involving multiple media. Beginning with the graphical MOSAIC version of the WWW browser to today's mobile browsers, WWW has become a principal means by which we perceive and interact with the world's information."

This, as you might expect, follows the Google party line. The company exists, it says, to "organise the world’s information" - it wants to be the interface users turn to when exploring the web. It just so happens, that while it’s about it, it earns a very handy sum in advertising revenue – the central plank in the web’s recent commercial revival.

But how about the future? What might the web look like in another 15 years?

"Very likely it will include 3D presentation capabilities, speech understanding input and perhaps even gestural inputs," Mr Cerf said.

"There will be billions of devices on the internet and many of them will be used to intermediate in daily information exchanges with our friends, family and colleagues, to say nothing of billions of information appliances on the network."

As far as the future of the web is concerned, if anything counts it is the opinion of Google’s Chief Internet Evangelist. Just remember, you heard it here first.

For more views on the web's future, and the most exciting moments in its past click here.

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