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EDITORS' BLOG
Last Updated:
Saturday, 5 August 2006, 06:27 GMT 07:27 UK
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Fifteen years of the web
6 August, 1991
Tim BernersLee releases web software
LETTERSPACING0 KERNING0Tim BernersLee formally introduced his world wide web project to the world on the alt.hypertext newsgroup. In the post he said the project "aims to allow links to be made to any detrmation anywhere". It did this by using hypertext a method for linking between different documents. Although invented many years earlier Mr BernersLees invention married hypertext with the internet. He also made available all of the files necessary for people to replicate his invention.
12 December, 1991
First web server outside Europe goes online
LETTERSPACING0 KERNING0Following a trip the Cern labs near Geneva where he met Tim BernersLee scientist Paul Kunz of the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center Slac in the US was inspired to set up North Americas first web server. This was the next link in the chain necessary to send the web worldwide. A server is a computer that stores and delivers web pages to other computers. The Slac server used the software developed by Mr BernersLee and was the first website in the United States.
November, 1992
There are 26 web servers online
22 April, 1993
Mosaic web browser for Windows is released
LETTERSPACING0 KERNING0Mosaic was the first web browser to run on the Windows operating system. It was developed at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications in the US. It allowed the general public to navigate the growing amount of detrmation on the web in a userfriendly way.
30 April, 1993
Cern announces that the World Wide Web can be used for free by anyone
LETTERSPACING0 KERNING0Tim BernersLee and Robert Cailliau manage to persuade Cern to provide the web technology and program code for free so that anyone can use and improve it. The decision is credited as one of the key reasons the web grew so quickly.
May, 1993
The Tech published by students at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology becomes the first online newspaper.
June, 1993
HTML programming language used to create webpages is released
November, 1993
First webcam goes online watching a coffee pot
LETTERSPACING0 KERNING0The webcam was set up by a group of computer scientists at Cambridge University. Frustrated at having to navigate several flights of stairs in search of coffee only to find the pot empty the academics installed a webcam to monitor the brew. The system was taken offline in 2001 and the percolator sold to the German news magazine Spiegel Online.
February, 1994
The precursor to Yahoo written by two US students goes online
LETTERSPACING0 KERNING0Yahoo was started by Stanford University students David Filo and Jerry Yang. It was originally called "Jerry's Guide to the World Wide Web" a site featuring a hierarchical directory of other sites. It was renamed Yahoo soon after. The name stands for Yet Another Hierarchical Officious Oracle. Some net ranking firms say that Yahoo is the most visited site on the web today.
April, 1994
BBC launches its first website for TV programme The Net
13 October, 1994
Bill Clinton puts whitehouse.gov on the web
25 October, 1994
Banner adverts for network firm ATT and a drink called Zima appear on websites
February, 1995
Radio HK becomes the first fulltime web radio station
1 July, 1995
Online bookstore Amazon.com launched
LETTERSPACING0 KERNING0The online book store was originally founded as Cadabra.com by Jeff Bezos in 1994. It was one of the first major companies to sell goods on the web. Although it started as an online bookstore it now sells music electronics furniture and even food.
August, 1995
There are now 18957 websites online
9 August, 1995
Dotcom boom begins on the stock markets
LETTERSPACING0 KERNING0A number of web companies go public. Web browser company Netscape receive the 3rd largest ever NASDAQ IPO share value. The dotcom bubble" began in 1997 after which stock markets around the world saw their value increase rapidly from investment in web startups. The bubble was marked by the founding and failure of many web based companies known as the dotcoms.
24 August, 1995
Microsofts Internet Explorer released as part of Windows 95
4 September, 1995
Online auction site eBay founded as Auctionweb
LETTERSPACING0 KERNING0The auction site was founded by computer programmer Pierre Omidyar as Auctionweb. The first item ever sold was a broken laser pointer for 13.83. It has since become the world's largest online auction site with thousands of transactions taking place every day.
15 December, 1995
First multilingual search engine Alta Vista launched
4 July, 1996
Hotmail is launched on Independence Day in the US
August, 1996
There are now 342081 websites online
March, 1997
BBC News launches a website to cover the 1997 election
June, 1997
Domain name business.com sold for 150000 £80000
17 December, 1997
Web commentator Jorn Barger coins the term weblog later shortened to blog
1 March, 1998
Kozmo.com that promised free onehour delivery of anything launches
LETTERSPACING0 KERNING0Kozmo.com was founded by investment bankers Joseph Park and Yong Kang. The company promised free onehour delivery of anything from DVDs to coffee. The company raised about 280 million including 60 million from Amazon.com. Many analysts pointed out that the business model would not work. The company collapsed in April 2001 one of the casualties of the bursting dot com bubble.
September, 1998
Google opens its first office in a garage in California
LETTERSPACING0 KERNING0The search giant began as a research project by two postgraduate students Larry Page and Sergey Brin at Stanford University. The search engine they designed analysed the relationships between websites to rank their importance. Until September 1997 the search engine used the Stanford University website with the domain google.stanford.edu. The name is a misspelling of the word googol. The search engine receives about a billion requests every day.
19 October, 1998
Open diary the first blog community launches
16 March, 1999
Everquest a massively multiplayer online roleplaying game is released
May, 1999
Shawn Fanning a student in Boston founds Napster
LETTERSPACING0 KERNING0Napster was the first widely used peertopeer file sharing service. Fanning wrote the original program at college to allow him and his friends to find and share mp3 files. The program was officially released on 01 June 1999. It immediately caught the attention of the recording industry who accused it of massive copyright theft. After a protracted legal battle the service was shutdown in July 2001. A legal service was launched soon after.
19 August, 1999
Original MySpace website launched as a file sharing service
LETTERSPACING0 KERNING0MySpace was originally an online storage and file sharing firm but was shutdown in 2001. The social networking site in its present form launched in July 2003. It was set up 2003 by Tom Anderson Chris DeWolfe and a small team of programmers. It now has close to 100 million users. The site lets users build a personalised home page. It also contains blogs photos music and a messaging system. In 2005 Media tycoon Rupert Murdoch paid 580m for the site.
November, 1999
Boo.com launches selling branded fashion wear
LETTERSPACING0 KERNING0Founded by Ernst Malmsten Kajsa Leander and Patrik Hedelin the company aimed to sell branded fashion wear. The site was widely criticised for its poor design. It used 3D graphics animations and Miss Boo a salesassistantstyle avatar to sell the clothes. At the time most web users did not have broadband and the graphic heavy site would take several minutes to load. The site went bust on May 18 2000. LETTERSPACING0 KERNING0 LETTERSPACING0 KERNING0however after spending vast sums of its venture capital it eventually had to liquidate and was placed into receivership on May 18 2000.
10 January, 2000
AOL buy Time Warner for 162bn the largest corporate merger ever
14 January, 2000
The dotcom bubble reaches its peak
LETTERSPACING0 KERNING0The dotcom bubble had been growing since 1997. The excitement surrounding the web caused share prices to soar. In January 2000 it reached its peak when the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed at a record level never reached before or since. On March 10 the NASDAQ Composite Index also reached an alltime high. Soon after the markets began to crash and with it went many of the start up companies bankrolled during the dotcom boom.
7 February, 2000
Eight websites including Yahoo CNN and Amazon crippled by hackers
August, 2000
Nearly 20 million websites online
11 January, 2001
A Grateful Dead track demonstrates podcasting for the first time
15 January, 2001
Online encyclopedia Wikipedia is founded by Jimmy Wales
4 September, 2001
Google awarded a patent for its PageRank algorithm used in its search engine
22 November, 2001
Pope John Paul II sends the first papal email from a laptop in his office
11 December, 2002
The FBI starts virtual wanted posts
28 April, 2003
Apples iTunes music download service launches
May, 2003
The first flash mob is organised in Manhattanover the web
LETTERSPACING0 KERNING0A flash mob is a group of people who assemble in a space to do something unusual. They are often organised through the web. The first flash mob was organised in Manhattan in May 2003 by Bill Wasik of Harper's Magazine. The first attempt was unsuccessful but the second time Wasik managed to get more than 100 people to converge in the rug department of a US department store.
27 January, 2004
Amazon.com makes first ever full year profit since its launch
5 February, 2004
Janet Jacksons breast becomes the most searchedfor image in web history
LETTERSPACING0 KERNING0During a halftime show with Justin Timberlake at the Superbowl the pop star had a "wardrobe malfunction". Following the event search engines reported a surge in searches for terms such as Janet Jackson and Super Bowl as people looked for images of the event.
July, 2004
Tim Berners Lee receives a knighthood
19 August, 2004
Google goes public. Shares are offered at 85. 15 months later they are worth over 400 each
9 November, 2004
Mozilla Firefox web browser launched
February, 2005
Video sharing site youtube.com goes online
October, 2005
The web grows more in 2005 than during the whole dot com boom. 17 million new sites go online
12 April, 2006
Google launches a restricted service in China called Gu Ge
2006
There are now 92615362 websites online
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WEB 15th ANNIVERSARY
Internet timeline
Trace the web's explosion from a tool for physicists to a part of everyday life
The web goes worldwide
The web and global business
Web's inventor knighted
Tim Berners-Lee on the web
Evangelising the internet
Where does the web go now?
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