I do. In fact, I was in Steve Case’s office once when he gave an AOL jacket to tennis great Boris Becker. I’ll see if I can dig up a photo for you. But here is the thing … AOL is like a distant star that exploded way out in the far reaches of the galaxy. It’s been dead for a long time. But, because light takes so long to travel through space – even at the speed of light – we still see it’s faint light even though it doesn’t really exist anymore.
Take a look at AOL’s meteoric trajectory and tell me how long you think it’s gonna last…
AOL members – historical growth path
1989 – AOL is launched for Macintosh
1991 – AOL is launched for MS-DOS (ugh! … still a dial-up BBS)
1992 – AOL introduces “chat rooms” – great place for child predators to meet up with kids
1993 – AOL is launched for Microsoft Windows
1995 – AOL is launched for Microsoft NT
1996 – AOL thinks maybe it’s a good idea to connect to something called the Internet
2011 – zero (0) AOL members – bankrupt, sold, out of business, defunct, acquired, gone
So what does AOL have to offer? Love @ AOL is gone, it was taken over by Match.com years ago. You don’t need AOL to get access to the Internet anymore. Google’s gmail gives you a free e-mail account. Facebook lets you do all the social networking and instant message that you want. Between Yahoo! and Google Alerts, I don’t see any fresh news coming out of AOL. So, what value in even using AOL unless you were lucky enough to snag a your first name or nick name @aol.com? If you have any stock left in Time Warner / AOL … it’s probably time to sell.
Although the launch of Russian satellite Sputnik was the inciting incident (1957) that set the wheels of Internet history in motion, it wasn’t until 1969 that the first nodes or web sites were installed on servers at UCLA, Stanford, UC Santa Barbara and University of Utah. And, it was on this day, October 29, 1969 that the first message was sent across the ARPAnet.
According to Len Kleinrock, Professor of Computer Science at UCLA and the author of, “Information Flow in Large Communications Nets,” the first white paper on Packet Switching – the concept that allows messages to be sent across the internet … the first message was supposed to be “LOG” followed by a response from another computer “IN” but after two letters, L and O, the system crashed. “Lo and behold,” said Kleinrock 40 years later to commemorate the Internet’s 40th anniversary.
Len Kleinrock white boards the birth of the Internet
When Jack Dorsey sat down for two weeks in March 2006 to create the prototype for Twitter, do you think he had any idea that Twitter would change the course of history? Think about how quickly Twitter has changed the way political campaigns, social revolutions, legislation, customer service, news and entertainment are conducted, communicated and distributed around the world.
Legend holds that the original code behind Twitter was created as a Taxi dispatch service to send taxi drivers short little SMS text messages about where to go to pick up a rider.
Dorsey and his small circle of colleagues conceived of the idea for Twitter back in March 2006. It took Dorsey two weeks to build the initial prototype for Twitter, it was launched 4 months later in August 2006. The tipping point for Twitter was apparently the 2007 South by Southwest (SxSW) interactive, film, and music festival held in Austin, Texas in March 2007. Twitter incorporated two months later in May 2007.
By May 2008, Twitter was being used heavily to coordinate massive campaign rallies for Senator Barack Obama’s presidential campaign. By June 2008, Persians used Twitter to protest the Iranian election results, distribute shocking photos of police brutality and organize flash protests around Tehran. In response, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, which owns and controls much of the media and telecommunications services, restricted access to Twitter. The United States government stepped in and asked Twitter to delay scheduled maintenance so as to not interrupt the flow of communication across Twitter.
Also in the summer of 2008, Shaquille O’Neil – a huge Twitter enthusiast – discovered on Twitter for the first time that he was being traded to the Cleveland Cavaliers. In the meantime, Mike Myers and Cameron Diaz were not allowed to say anything about their upcoming Shrek 4 movie through Twitter.
Indeed, Twitter has become a way for celebrities, politicians, gurus, professional athletes, spiritual leaders and other influential people to stay in touch with their followers. It has also been a major public relations and security challenge for corporations, industries, public affairs offices, security teams and legal professionals.
Facebook purchases Twitter
It’s too early to predict whether Twitter is here to stay or will streak across the sky like a meteor. It could be that Twitter is purchased by LinkedIn or Facebook, both of which have a similar status bar. Or, it could be that Twitter is purchased by Google or Microsoft in order to stay on top of real-time search.
Either way, what I do know is that Twitter will go down in history as one of the pivotal points in the history of the Internet, the history of the web, the information revolution, the internet revolution and the history of world civilization.
In the movies, during the first Act, there is often an inciting incident that sets the rest of the screenplay into motion. It impacts the world in such a way that the course of history is changed forever. If our screenplay was called, “History of the Web“, the inciting incident would probably be Sputnik.
The 1957 surprize launch of Sputnik was the impetus for the Internet
The Russian satellite, Sputnik, was the first to be launched into space and set into orbit.
1957, The Soviet Union (USSR) successfully launched Sputnik
1958, President Eisenhower creates Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA)
1961, UCLA Professor publishes paper on packet switching
Likely, only baby boomers would have remembered this event but it scared the hell out of many Americans, especially those in politics. The thing about Sputnik was two-fold;
It caught most people off-guard because the Soviets planned and executed Sputnik with extraordinary stealth, precision and secrecy.
It created enormous anxiety among many Americans causing them to fear that He who dominated space would dominate the world.
This knee-jerk reaction set into motion a series of events and a chain reaction that forever changed society and the world as we know it. It set the Cold War into motion and a space race to the moon. One unlikely offshoot of this historic event is the Internet.
1962, RAND studies command and control post nuclear attack
1964, Baran writes first paper, “On Distributed Communications Networks”
1965, MIT Larry Roberts conducts first computer network experiment
1966, The ARPA project begins. Larry Roberts is chief scientist.
1969, ARPAnet installed at UCLA and Stanford. First electronic message sent.
The basic premise of the Internet was that the United States needed a complex network of communication highways that would allow us to maintain a continuity of operations plan (COOP) in case one local hub (Washington, DC, for example) were to be taken out by a space-based weapon or nuclear ballistic missile.
The concept was not terribly different from the 1956 establishment of the Eisenhower National System of Interstate and Defense Highways, which would provide key ground transport routes for military supplies and troop deployments in case of an emergency or foreign invasion.
In 1991, Senator Al Gore was not far off when he referred to the future of the Internet as the Information Superhighway. It was then that Gore helped to craft the High Performance Computing and Communication Act.
Sputnik occurred 7 years before I was born. But, it wasn’t until the summer of 1969, when I was 5 years old that the Internet’s precursor, ARPAnet (Advanced Research Projects Agency network) was established and the first message was sent across the net.
For about the next 15 years, the Cold War heated up along with a nuclear arms race. In fact, in 1982 I answered President Ronald Reagan’s call to action to defeat the “Evil Soviet Empire” and I joined the 82d Airborne Division. He offered a $20,000 bonus to Infantry enlistees that, at the time, was enough to finance my entire undergraduate degree.
In 1984, I was deployed to Honduras to train Contra rebels how to parachute from CH-47 (Chinook) helicopters and fight against the Cuban-backed Sandanistas. Later, I discovered that this operation was part of Ronald Reagan’s secret War and the Iran-Contra Affair.
But, I digress … back to the history of the Internet … after a brief pause.
1970, First packet radio network, ALOHAnet at U of H
1972, Tomlinson wrote first e-mail program, chooses @ symbol
1973, First ARPAnet connections to Europe (London & Norway)
1974, “Internet” is coined by Vint Cerf and Bob Kahn
1976, Metcalfe develops Ethernet to allow fast data transfer
1978, TCP split into TCP and IP
1980, Tim Berners-Lee of CERN writes precursor to HTML
1981, Microsoft creates DOS (disc operating system)
1983, Domain Name System (DNS) designed by Postel, Mockapetris & Partridge
1984, “Cyberspace” is coined by William Gibson
1985, Symbolic.com becomes the first registered domain name
In 1985, the year that I received an honorable discharge from the 82d Airborne Division, the Army sent me to a vocational college course to help integrate us Infantry folks back into society. I had a choice of bar tending or computer programming. I chose the programming class.
My first professional job out of college was at TRW, a defense contractor, on an Army project called the Army World Wide Military Command and Control Information System. I was stationed at the East wing of the Pentagon in the Army Operations Center (AOC) beneath the parking lot.
It was during this period of time (1989-1992) that I was introduced to TCP/IP, the communications protocol that enabled interoperability between different computers and operating systems. Allowing Macs, PCs and (soon to be extinct) mainframe computers (and ultimately, iPhones), to talk to each other was a crucial part of the system.
1986, 5,000 web sites across the Internet
1987, 10,000 web sites across the Internet
1989, 100,000 web sites across Internet
1990, Tim Berners-Lee and Geneva’s CERN implement HTML
1991, Al Gore crafts High Performance Computing and Communications Act
1992, CERN releases World Wide Web
1993, Marc Andreessen launched Mosaic web browser
1994, Yahoo! founded by David Filo and Jerry Yang of Standford
1995, Browser war begins (Mosaic, Netscape, Internet Explorer
A few years later, I worked at the Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA), a distant cousin to DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency), and it was there that I first started using HTML and helped to create and maintain one of the agencies first world wide web sites.
In 1994, I remember buying a book called something like, “Directory of the World Wide Web.” It was basically a printed Yellow Pages of Internet sites. Of course, within about 4 months the book was obsolete because the number of websites was growing at a rate of about 25,000/month. Obviously, there was a growing need for a dynamic database of websites. That was the year that Yahoo! came out.
By 1995, that I knew that the Internet was going to be something huge. So, I began registering hundreds of domain names, including photographer.com. It was also amazing to see traditional photography go digital and the morphing of digital imaging and web design.
1996, AOL provides open access to the internet
1997, Business.com sells for $150,000
1998, Google is founded by Larry Page and Sergey Brin
1999, AOL Buys Netscape ($10 billion) declares browser war officially over
2000, Dot-com bubble bursts, AOL merges with Time-Warner
2001, Al-Qaeda uses Internet to coordinate 9/11 terrorist attacks
As a semi-professional photographer with a BS in Business, MS in Information Systems and insight into the world wide web; the stars seemed to be uniquely aligned. Within a couple months of launching photographer.com, I was getting huge contracts from very wealthy people and flying all over the world to shoot special events. It didn’t take long to realize that I needed to quit my $50,000/year government job and go private. So, in 1998, I separated from the government and became obsessed with Internet marketing and web development.
Back then, it was easy to get found on Yahoo and easy to get listed in DMOZ – The Open Directory Project. But, as time went by, it became more and more difficult to stay on top. By 1999, Google was proving to be a very effective search engine and by 2000, my obsession began to shift from just web design to search engine optimization.
I was also amazed at the social activity that was happening online. I still had an account on AOL and people out of the blue would instant message me. Looking back, a significant number of my relationships – both professional and personal – were formed online. I didn’t realize it at the time, but this was social media in the making … and it was amazing!
By then, probably 85-90% of my business came to me through the web. The foundation of traditional advertising and marketing was about to discover the phrase, “smackdown!”
I moved from Washington, DC to California because, after all, that was Internet mecca. It was amazing to be around a bunch of brilliant, like-minded people who share a similar vision and obsession with regard to the web.
During this time, I saw e-commerce firms sprout up over night and sell a quarter million dollars worth of merchandise in a month. I learned all about web analytics, blogging, cascading style sheets (CSS), content management systems, e-commerce platforms, open source software, social media, project management, affiliate marketing, outsourcing and, most importantly, search engine optimization (SEO). I saw companies like AOL burst onto the scene and then fizzle out like meteors and comets streaking across the sky.
By now, it is impossible to keep Internet milestones down to one line, thought or accomplishment per year
2004, Faceook launches, Google IPO @ $85/share
2004, Osama Bin Laden post message directly to the web
2004, Howard Dean’s successful Meetup.com changes political campaigning
2005, YouTube launches to massive viral success
2005, Steve Case resigns from AOL as AOL continues downward spiral
2005, Google launches Google Maps and Google Analytics
2007, Apple surpasses one billion iTunes downloads
2007, Marc Andreessen launches Ning Do it Yourself (DIY) social networking platform
2007, Netflix delivers movies over the web
2008, Google launches Chrome, Android, G1 Phone
2008, 1.5 billion people online
2008, Obama leads historic online campaign to win Presidency
2009, Obama uses YouTube to deliver message to Iran
2009, Protestors in Iran use Twitter to organize rallies
2009, United States government asks Twitter to delay maintenance
2009, Bing bursts onto the scene and overtakes Yahoo! to be #2
2009, Real-time search is born
As the web continues to evolve, I am thrilled to have been an active part of its growth from an early adopter to crossing the chasm into mainstream society.
Len Kleinrock – one of the Founding Fathers of the Internet
The following table is a high level account of what I believe to be some of the most important and significant events in the history of the Internet and the World Wide Web (WWW). I hope you find it interesting, enlightening and informative. If you have anything to add, please make a comment or send me an e-mail.
History of the World Wide Web
Year
Historical event + relevant milestones
1957
The Soviet Union (USSR) successfully launched Sputnik I, the world’s first artificial satellite.
1958
In response to Sputnik, President Eisenhower creates the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA)
1959
Paul Baran, Rand Corporation, pitches idea of Internet so military commanders could communicate in the event of a nuclear strike on American soil
1961
Len Kleinrock, Professor of Computer Science at UCLA, writes first paper on packet switching, “Information Flow in Large Communications Nets.”
1962
RAND Paul Baran, of the RAND Corporation (a government agency), was commissioned by the U.S. Air Force to do a study on how it could maintain its command and control over its missiles and bombers, after a nuclear attack.
J.C.R. Licklider & W. Clark write first paper on Internet Concept, “On-Line Man Computer Communications.”
1964
Paul Baran writes, “On Distributed Communications Networks,” first paper on using message blocks to send info across a decentralized network topology (Nodes and Links)
1965
First Network Experiment: Directed by Larry Roberts at MIT Lincoln Lab, two computers talked to each other using packet-switching technology.
1966
The ARPA project begins. Larry Roberts is chief scientist.
1968
ARPANet contract given to Bolt, Beranek & Newman (BBN) in Cambridge, Mass.
1969
First ARPANet node installed at UCLA Network Measurement Center.
Second node installed at Stanford Research Institute; connected to a SDS 940 computer.
Third node installed at University of California, Santa Barbara. Connected to an IBM 360/75.
Fourth node installed at University of Utah. Connected to a DEC PDP-10.
The first ARPANet message sent
1970
Fifth node installed at BBN, across the country in Cambridge, Mass.
Alohanet, first packet radio network, operational at University of Hawaii.
1972
First basic e-mail programs written by Ray Tomlinson at BBN for ARPANET: SNDMSG and READMAIL. “@” sign chosen for its “at” meaning.
Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) was renamed Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA)
1973
First ARPANET international connections to University College of London (England) and NORSAR (Norway).
Development began on the protocol later to be called TCP/IP, it was developed by a group headed by Vinton Cerf from Stanford and Bob Kahn from DARPA. This new protocol was to allow diverse computer networks to interconnect and communicate with each other.
Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act establishes requirements for electronic and information technology developed, maintained, procured, or used by the Federal government. Section 508 requires Federal electronic and information technology to be accessible to people with disabilities, including employees and members of the public.
1974
Intel releases the 8080 processor.
Vint Cerf and Bob Kahn publish “A Protocol for Packet Network Interconnection,” which details the design of TCP.
First Use of term Internet by Vint Cerf and Bob Kahn in paper on Transmission Control Protocol.
1976
Dr. Robert M. Metcalfe develops Ethernet, which allowed coaxial cable to move data extremely fast, a crucial component to the development of LANs.
UUCP (Unix-to-Unix CoPy) developed at AT&T Bell Labs and distributed with UNIX one year later.
Apple Computer founded by Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak with funding from Mike Markkula.
1978
TCP split into TCP and IP.
1979
Bob Metcalfe and others found 3Com (Computer Communication Compatibility).
USENET (the decentralized news group network) was created by Steve Bellovin, a graduate student at University of North Carolina, and programmers Tom Truscott and Jim Ellis. It was based on UUCP.
1980
While working at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), Tim Berners-Lee writes program called “Enquire Within,” predecessor to the World Wide Web
1981
IBM announces its first Personal Computer. Microsoft creates DOS.
National Science Foundation created backbone called CSNET 56 Kbps network for institutions without access to ARPANET.
Vinton Cerf proposed a plan for an inter-network connection between CSNET and the ARPANET.
1983
Cisco Systems founded.
Internet Activities Board (IAB) was created
Domain Name System (DNS) designed by Jon Postel, Paul Mockapetris, and Craig Partridge.
Dot edu, dot gov, dot com, dot mil, dot org, dot net, and dot int created.
1984
William Gibson writes “Neuromancer.” Coins the term “cyberspace”.
Apple Computer introduces the Macintosh on January 24th.
The ARPANET was divided into two networks: MILNET and ARPANET. MILNET was to serve the needs of the military and ARPANET to support the advanced research component, Department of Defense continued to support both networks.
1985
Symbolic.com becomes the first registered domain.
The National Science Foundation (NSF) began deploying its new T1 lines.
Bankrupt Control Video Corporation reorganized as Quantum Computer Services
John Scully relieves Steve Jobs of command at Apple
Steve Jobs creates NeXT corporation
1986
5000 hosts on ARPAnet/Internet.
The Internet Engineering Task Force or IETF was created to serve as a forum for technical coordination by contractors for DARPA working on ARPANET, US Defense Data Network (DDN), and the Internet core gateway system.
1987
10,000 hosts on the Internet.
First Cisco router shipped. 25 million PCs sold in US.
BITNET and CSNET merged to form the Corporation for Research and Educational Networking (CREN), another work of the National Science Foundation.
1988
Quantum Computer Services partners with Apple to create AppleLink
Congress amended the Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 to require Federal agencies to make their electronic and information technology accessible to people with disabilities.
1989
100,000 hosts on Internet.
McAfee Associates founded; anti-virus software available for free.
Apple and Quantum discontinue partnership, Quantum becomes America On Line.
1990
Tim Berners-Lee and CERN in Geneva implements a hypertext system (HTML) to provide efficient information access to the members of the international high-energy physics community.
Americans with Disabilities Act signed into law, which paved the way for agencies and websites like Accessibility-Board.com.
1991
Al Gore crafts the High Performance Computing and Communication Act of 1991, which as passed on Dec. 9, 1991 and led to the NII or National Information Infrastructure which Gore referred to as the Information superhighway.
President George H. W. Bush predicted that this bill would help “unlock the secrets of DNA,” open up foreign markets to free trade, and a promise of cooperation between government, academia, and industry.
Steve Case becomes CEO of Quantum Computer Services
1992
“Surfing the Internet” is coined by Jean Armour Polly.
World-Wide Web released by CERN.
1993
Marc Andreesen at University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana launches Mosaic Web browser
InterNIC created by NSF to provide specific Internet services: directory and database services (by AT&T), registration services (by Network Solutions Inc.), and information services (by General Atomics/CERFnet).
1994
Marc Andreessen and Jim Clark launch Netscape Navigator (web browser)
Jeff Bezos writes the business plan for Amazon.com.
Java’s first public demonstration.
ATM (Asynchronous Transmission Mode, 145Mbps) backbone is installed on NSFNET.
Yahoo! founded in 1994 by Stanford Ph.D. students David Filo and Jerry Yang
World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) begins creation and publishing of web standards and guidelines.
Microsoft licenses technology from Spyglass to create Web browser for Windows 95.
1995
$50 annual fee is imposed on domains, excluding .edu and .gov domains which are still funded by the National Science Foundation.
photographer.com was registered
Microsoft released Internet Explorer
Netscape IPO instantly made Clark and Andreessen multi-millionaires, launching the Internet boom
Microsoft’s Bill Gates wrote memo titled, “The Internet Tidal Wave,” said that the Web was the most important single developmgnt since the IBM PC
Sun Microsystems releases Java
Windows 95 released
Pierre Omidyar wrote the code for eBay (at the time called, “AuctionWeb”)
1996
Domain name tv.com sold to CNET for $15,000.
Sabeer Bhatia and Jack Smith launch HoTMaiL
Browser wars begin. Netscape and Microsoft two biggest players.
AOL provides open access to the internet
Apple buys NeXT and Steve Jobs returns as Apple’s CEO
Ebay registers 40,000 users
Stanford University computer science graduate students, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, create search engine called BackRub
Amazon.com launches
1997
business.com sold for $150,000.
Hotmail reaches 12 million subscribers, adds instant messaging
Ebay registers 300,000 users
Larry Page and Sergey Brin rename BackRub to Google
Bhatia and Smith sell Hotmail to Microsoft for $400 million
1998
Microsoft reaches a partial settlement with the Justice Department that allows personal computer makers to remove or hide its Internet software on new versions of Windows 95.
AOL buys Netscape for $4 billion (worth $10 billion at time of closing)
Netscape announces plans to give its browser away for free.
Ebay registers 2 million users
Google Inc is founded by Larry Page and Sergey Brin, funded with $100,000 by Andy Bechtolsheim in the garage of Susan Wojcicki. They hire their first employee, Craig Silverstein.
US Depart of Commerce outlines proposal to privatize DNS.
ICANN created by Jon Postel to oversee privatization.
Congress amended the Rehabilitation Act to require Federal agencies to make their electronic and information technology accessible to people with disabilities. Section 508 was enacted to eliminate barriers in information technology, to make available new opportunities for people with disabilities, and to encourage development of technologies that will help achieve these goals.
Open Source Initiative (OSI), a California tax-exempt public benefit corporation, is founded.
Macromedia acquires Allair, maker of Dreamweaver, a web development application
PayPal launches
1999
AOL buys Netscape.
Ebay registers 10 million users
Browsers wars declared over; Netscape and Microsoft share almost 100% of browser market.
W3C recommends Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0 to help web developers make web content accessible to people with disabilities
Google receives $25 million in venture capital
Elon Musk sells Zip2 to AltaVisat for $300 million
2000
Fixed wireless, high-speed Internet technology is now seen as a viable alternative to copper and fiber optic lines placed in the ground.
The Dot-Com Bubble bursts.
AOL Merges with Time-Warner.
James Hong and Jim Young launch Hot or Not
A large-scale denial of service attack is launched against some major Web sites like Yahoo! and eBay, alerting Web sites to the need for tighter security measures.
10,000,000 domain names have been registered.
Google launches AdWords, which is paid (sponsored) advertising that shows up at the top and to the side of organic search results.
Google partners with Yahoo! to be their default search provider
2001
Alneda.com, al-Qaeda-run website, helps to coordinate September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.
A federal judge rules that Napster must remain offline until it can prevent copyrighted material from being shared by its users.
The Code Red worm and Sircam virus infiltrate thousands of web servers and email accounts, respectively, causing a spike in Internet bandwidth usage and security breaches.
The European Council adopts the first treaty addressing criminal offenses committed over the Internet.
First uncompressed real-time gigabit HDTV transmission across a wide-area IP network takes place on Internet2.
2002
Jon David Messner, (an American entrepreneur and pornographer who created, TheWetlands.com, an amateur porn site) hacks into and hijacks the radical news site Alneda shutting it down forever.
Dot name begins resolving
Google partners with AOL to offer Google search and sponsored links to customers using AOL, Compuserve and Netscape.
Friendster launches one of the world’s first social networking sites
Friendster attracts 1 million visitors and $1 million in venture capital
eBay acquires PayPal
2003
The SQL Slammer worm causes one of the largest and fastest spreading DDoS attacks ever, taking only 10 minutes to spread worldwide.
The Internet celebrates its ‘unofficial’ 20th birthday.
The RIAA sues 261 individuals for allegedly distributing copyright music files over peer-to-peer networks
The Research project “How much information 2003″ finds that Instant messaging generates five billion messages a day (750GB), or 274 Terabytes a year and that e-mail generates about 400,000 terabytes of new information each year worldwide.
Mark Zuckerberg creates Facemash as a photo sharing and social networking site for Harvard students
eUniverse’s Brad Greenspan, Chris DeWolf, Josh Berman and Todd Anderson create MySpace.
Skype launches, enabling people to use the internet to talk over the phone via Voice over IP (VOIP)
Reid Hoffman launches LinkedIn (established in 2002)
2004
O’Reilly Media organizes a conference around the second wave of the Web and coins the phrase Web 2.0 based on two premises: 1) user-generated content and 2) cloud computing or thin clien computing.
An audio message claiming to be from Osama Bin Laden was posted directly to a website, rather than sending a copy to al Jazeera as he had done in the past.
Google exercises Initial Public Offering (IPO) at $85/share
Mark Zuckerberg creates Facebook, a reincarnation of Facemash
Caterina Fake launches Flickr
Howard Dean uses internet-based Meetup website to organize 140,000 members and raise over $15 million in small donations, which served as the basis for Barack Obama’s historic 2008 internet-based presidential campaign.
2005
YouTube.com launches
Steve Case resigns from AOL/Time-Warner
Google releases Google Maps
Yahoo! acquired Flickr for $40 million
Marc Andreessen, Gina Bianchini establish Ning
Google releases Google Analytics, formerly Urchin
Adobe acquires Macromedia, maker of Dreamweaver, a web development application
eBay acquires Skype for $2.6 billion
Michael and Xochi Birch establish Bebo
2006
There are an estimated 92 million Web sites online
A massive DDOS assault on Blue Security, an anti-spam company, is redirected by Blue Security staff to their Movable Type-hosted blog. The result is that the DDOS instead knocks out all access to over 1.8 million active blogs.
AOL announces that they will give for free virtually every service for which it charged a monthly fee, with income coming instead from advertising.
Hot or Not reached 13 billion votes
There are an estimated 92 million Web sites online (some stats say over 100 million).
Google Inc. acquires YouTube for $1.65 billion in a stock-for-stock transaction.
Skype introduces video conferencing via Video/Voice over IP (VOIP)
2007
Microsoft launches its various consumer versions of Microsoft Vista.
Marc Andreessen sells Opsware to HP (Hewlett-Packard) for $1.6 billion
Marc Andreessen launches Ning – DIY social networking platform
Apple surpasses one billion iTunes downloads.
Apple introduces iPhone
5,000,000 iPhones sold
1.114 billion people use the Internet according to Internet World Stats.
Netflix announces online delivery option for movies.
2008
W3C delivers WCAG 2.0 and announces a new standard that will help web designers and developers create sites that better meet the needs of users with disabilities and older users.
Google delivers its own web browser, Google Chrome
Google launches Android, the mobile operating system for its G1 phone
Google and T-Mobile partner to create G1 phone
Target agrees to pay $6 million to the plaintiffs and make its website accessible to blind customers
1.5 billion people use the internet
AOL buys Bebo for $850 million
Hot or Not sells for $20 million
Facebook overtakes MySpace as the world’s leading social networking site
Barack Obama leverages the internet to forever change the face of presidential politics and campaigns in the United States. President-elect Obama raised record donations and attracted millions of viewers to his website, BarackObama.com, his facebook page, YouTube channel and a host of other social media sites. Once elected, he created Change.gov to increase the transparency of his transition team.
2009
President Obama is inaugurated on the basis of an historic internet-empowered presidential campaign and within seconds of taking his oath of office, WhiteHouse.gov switches over from George Bush’s website to Barack Obama’s website.
President Obama uses YouTube to speak directly to the people of Iran.
Protesters in Iran use Twitter to organize rallies.
Revolutionaries in Iran, Moldova, Burma, Thailand and other places around the world use Twitter to stage, organize and rally political protests.
The United States government asks Twitter to delay schedule maintenance so as to not disrupt Tweeters.
Governments respond by shutting down Twitter, conducting denial of service attacks (DSA), beating and imprisoning influential Tweeters.
Bing.com (Microsoft) overtakes Yahoo! as second most popular search engine – behind #1 Google.
Entire expos, summits and conventions center around Twitter and Social Media
Real-time search engines emerge (Scoopler.com, Tweetmeme.com, OneRiot.com and Topsy.com), which present the most recent news, blog articles, tweets and conversations about a particular subject or keyword.
History of Internet Users Across Social Media
Social media statistics by number of users, members, subscribers, unique visits
Note: statistics are hard to verify and very misleading. For example, MySpace could have 300,000,000 million registered users but only 100,000,000 of them are active. Likewise, they could have 125,000,000 unique visits but only 110,000,000 of them are registered users.
WASHINGTON, DC – Years ago, I used to be a professional photographer. Back then, the standard equipment was a medium format Hasselblad, light meter and studio strobes. Back then, we had to load our film in the dark. In 1995, when I registered photographer.com, I was one of the only photographers I knew who had a website. And interestingly, within 3 months I booked my first expensive ($10,000+) wedding gig.
Digital photography revolution
Fast forward 8 years to 2003 and the digital photography revolution changed everything. Barriers to entry dropped. Instead of needing a $50,000 investment in studio equipment and $1/photo (film, developing, proofs), you could buy a couple thousand dollar digital cameras, take thousands of photos at no real cost and you’re bound to come out with at least a few good ones – that’s all you need. Needless to say, digital photography killed my high-end photography business. Fortunately, it was an easy segue from photography to web design.
Digital photography and the Internet converges
While digital photography was emerging, so was the Internet. This convergence of digital imaging, instant messaging and the Internet has reduced the barriers to reporting and telecommunicating. Sending messages overseas used to be costly, now it costs next to nothing. Add Twitter and Skype to the mix and everything is happening in real time.
Green revolution
Just like digital camera equipment revolutionized the photography business; digital cameras and the Internet has also revolutionized photojournalism, world politics, society and culture. Now, another revolution is going on and it happens to be in Iran.
I’m too politically naïve and ignorant to know or take sides, but I am fascinated with how digital photography and the Internet speeds delivery of images like the ones below. To spare the controversy, I’ve only included relatively peaceful images by AP Photos / Ben Curtis – found online.
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Remember the famous quote attributed to 
For about the next 15 years, the Cold War heated up along with a nuclear arms race. In fact, in 1982 I answered President Ronald Reagan’s call to action to defeat the “Evil Soviet Empire” and I joined the 82d Airborne Division. He offered a $20,000 bonus to Infantry enlistees that, at the time, was enough to finance my entire undergraduate degree.
