Carterfone

Then-Senator Al Gore, Jr.

At its official 1983 launch, the Internet had been a

modest experimental network of networks owned by
the U.S. government. As late as 1989, even insiders
are betting against it – OSI is the official favorite for
the future of internetworking, or connecting
networks together. But in the meantime the Internet
has quietly grown to 100,000 host machines, each
with multiple users. By 1992 the Internet will have
emerged as the new global standard, linking a
million computers. In hindsight, the Internet has
several key advantages, from a growing community
of enthusiasts churning out working software and
hardware, to free distribution with the UNIX
operating system, to being built in to common
hardware like Cisco routers.

But the decisive factor? Probably money—especially

U.S. government support from the National Science
Foundation’s NSFNET and other sources. At the
instigation of computer pioneers, Senator Al Gore
begins working in 1987 on what will become his High
Performance Computing and Communication Act.
When it is funded in 1991, the Act creates the
National Information Infrastructure, which promotes
and funds over $600 million worth of various
networking initiatives. Gore famously calls it the
“information superhighway.”

More than six Online Systems for the Internet

Viola Internet hypertext system circa 1989

The Internet connects over a million people by the
end of the 1980s and is growing fast. But because it
is a closed, non-commercial network used mostly by
geeks, it lacks online systems to help ordinary
people navigate it. None of the companies making
slick, easy-to-use online systems like Minitel in
France, CompuServe, AOL, etc. want to invest in
porting them to an academic network. In any case
they have their own networks.

This vacuum at the top of the Internet creates an

opportunity for small players to try and create or
adapt their own online systems. Usenet is the first;
though mostly for geeks its discussion groups are
quite popular and it gets ported to run over the
Internet by 1986. Others range from low-key
commercial ventures like WAIS and Hyper-G to
student projects like Viola, Lynx, and Gopher.
Several use clickable hypertext links – including one
small experiment ambitiously called the
“WorldWideWeb.”
1990

The "WorldWideWeb" is born

First Web browser-editor, 1990

At the world’s biggest physics laboratory, CERN in

Switzerland, English programmer and physicist Tim
Berners-Lee submits two proposals for what will
become the Web, starting in March of 1989. Neither
is approved. He proceeds anyway, with only
unofficial support from his boss and his coworker
Robert Cailliau. By Christmas of 1990 he has
prototyped “WorldWideWeb” (as he writes it) in just
three months on an advanced NeXT computer. It
features a server, HTML, URLs, and the first browser.
That browser also functions as an editor—like a word
processor connected to the Internet – which reflects
his original vision that the Web also incorporate
authoring and personal organization tools. The idea
is that a Web of useful links will grow and deepen as
people create them in the course of their daily lives.
The Web had been partly inspired by his earlier
Enquire program, which had combined networked
hypertext with ideas that would later evolve into the
Semantic Web.
1991

NSF lifts restrictions on commercial use of the

Internet
Early commercial Internet Service Provider (ISP)

After the National Science Foundation (NSF) changes

its policy, the Internet is for the first time a publicly
accessible network with no commercial restrictions.
This removes the last major remaining advantage for
competing networking and internetworking
standards, from OSI to SNA to CompuServe’s own
international network. Four years later the NSF will
turn over the Internet’s backbone (main high speed
lines and nodes) completely to private industry.

Web browsers: a Cry for Help

Browser family tree

Tim Berners-Lee’s 1990 GUI browser-editor runs only

on rare NeXT computers. CERN refuses to fund other
versions for common platforms. So the Web team
writes a simple text-only browser for quick
distribution, and then begs volunteers to write or
adapt the needed GUI browsers for PCs, Macs, and
UNIX machines. The team also provides code to
start with; the WWW Common Library is essentially a
build-your-own-browser toolkit written by Tim
Berners-Lee and technical research assistant Jean-
François Groff.

Eight volunteers respond, resulting in UNIX, Mac,

and PC browsers. Viola and Midas are initially the
most popular, eclipsed later by Mosaic. All of them
leave out editing features, which are trickier to
implement on machines other than the NeXT.
Berners-Lee never regains control of his creation.
1993

Gopher Stumbles

Gopher screen
Gopher, which organizes content in folders rather
than clickable links, grows faster than the Web in
the early ‘90s and is its most direct Internet
competitor. Educational institutions embrace
Gopher, as do the U.S. Congress. Developed by Mark
McCahill, Paul Lindner and Farhad Anklesaria from a
Campus-Wide Information Service, Gopher is named
both for the University of Minnosota mascot, and
after “go for” meaning fetch. By 1993, the gopher
developers are planning to add hyperlinks and even
virtual reality features.

The Web pulls ahead partly by incorporating the

ability to read Gopher pages; this is the same
absorption strategy it had employed previously when
it added support for WAIS and others. Two other rival
standards, Lynx and Viola, have conveniently
converted themselves into Web browsers. But with
Gopher, the Web also gets a major lucky break: the
University of Minnesota begins charging for Gopher
server licenses in 1993, literally the same spring the
Web becomes officially public domain – and free.

Mosaic popularizes the Web

NCSA Mosaic

Mosaic, the first browser supported by a major

institution, starts the Web on the road from research
project to blockbuster success. Written by brilliant
student Marc Andreessen and UNIX expert Eric Bina
at the National Center for Supercomputing
Applications, Mosaic was modeled on the Viola and
Midas browsers and also used the CERN code library.
But NCSA quickly assigned teams to write UNIX,
Mac, and PC versions, as well as servers. Unlike
other browsers it was reliable and could be installed
by amateurs. Along with other browsers around this
time Mosaic added graphics within Web pages
instead of in separate windows. Mosaic spread like
wildfire.

Online ads mark the slow start of the

commercial Web

Ad on O'Reilly's Global Network Navigator

Business people are wary. How can you make money

on the Web and the Internet? They are both open
standards; you can't charge by the minute as online
systems have done since their start in the 1960s.
In 1993, O’Reilly’s pioneering Global Network
Navigator Web portal is running online ads. In 1994,
Enterprise Integration Technologies (EIT) founds the
CommerceNet consortium to encourage Web
commerce, and demonstrates secure credit-card
transactions that same year.

The first businesses to earn substantial profits on

the Web are pornography and gambling sites, by
1995. But it is Netscape’s spectacular IPO, and the
success of online shopping sites like Amazon and
eBay, that finally convinces mainstream business to
follow the pioneers into Web commerce.
1994

Web momentum moves to US

White House Web site

When main Web inventor Tim Berners-Lee forms the

World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) in 1994, the
European headquarters are slated for the Web’s
birthplace, CERN in Switzerland, with U.S.
headquarters at MIT in Boston. But then CERN
changes its plans and the core team of Web
developers gets split among several French research
sites. Also in 1994, Vice-President Al Gore supports a
prominent White House Web site, as well as
encouraging funding of W3C in the U.S.

Perhaps most important, Silicon Valley begins to

invest in the commercial possibilities of the Web –
including Java and the formation of Netscape. The
momentum for Web development shifts further West,
and never returns to Europe.
1995

Browser War II: Netscape vs. Microsoft

Netscape Navigator browser

Browser War I had been more of a coup – when half

the Mosaic team defected in early 1994 and formed
Netscape under entrepreneur Jim Clark, Mosaic
lasted less than a year. But when Microsoft licenses
a version of Mosaic and rebrands it Internet Explorer,
the fight is on. In the mid to late 1990s Netscape
revolutionizes the business model for the Web, and
helps it spread to ordinary people as well as
businesses.

But Microsoft gives away Explorer free with every

copy of Windows 95 and beyond, and by the end of
the 1990s Netscape is failing. As a last-ditch
strategy the code for Netscape's Navigator browser
gets converted to open source, and becomes the
basis of the Mozilla Foundation and its Firefox
browser today.

Online Services make way for the Web

Windows '95 box with MSN logo

Most of the big “walled gardens” — CompuServe,

AOL, Minitel in France—resist the Web and Internet.
By the mid 1990s they are either fading out or on
their way to becoming Web portals.
Microsoft Network (MSN) is the one that might have
mounted a serious challenge. The tens of millions of
copies of Windows 95 come ready to connect to this
private network, which has proprietary protocols; it
could have become the biggest online service in the
world nearly overnight.

But by 1995 the Web is growing quickly, and

Microsoft CEO Bill Gates decides it is better to fight
within the Web than to fight the Web itself. In a
single memo, he turns company strategy completely
around to focus on the Web in nearly every product.
MSN becomes a Web portal.
1996

Web users reach 36 million, now biggest user

community
Boston cybercafe, mid 1990s

At the end of 1996, the 36 million Web users surpass

the 30 million or so on France’s Minitel, until now the
most popular online system. By decade’s end, the
Web will hit 360 million. By 2010, two billion.
1999

The Mobile Web arrives in Japan

i-Mode screen, bookstore

Japanese mobile phone operator NTT DoCoMo

creates the i-mode networking standard for mobile
data in 1999. By 2002, over 34 million subscribers
are using it on their phones for web access, e-mail,
mobile payments, streaming video, and many other
features that the rest of the world won't see for
nearly another decade. The i-mode protocols, a
simplified version of the standard HTML web
language, are designed to work well with devices
having small screens, limited buttons, and no
keyboard. Related systems like WAP (Wireless
Access Protocol) have fewer customers, but all of
them contribute to bringing mobile browsing to a
mass market.

WiFi Comes Home

Apple Airport Wi-Fi base station

In 1999, the growing IEEE 802.11b short-range radio
networking standard is rebranded “Wi-Fi” by the Wi-Fi
Alliance. This is the same year Apple releases its
"Airport" Wi-Fi router and builds Wi-Fi connectivity
into new Macs. These and other consumer products
help popularize cable-free connections at work, in
cafes, and at home.
2001

The Dot Com Boom…and Bust

Greed issue, San Francisco magazine
As users flock to the Web, the opportunities seem
boundless. Nearly everything you could do with
previous networks is ported to the Web, and every
business sector, community, religion, and subculture
stakes out a place online. Initial skepticism gives
way to experimentation, and then mounting
excitement as people begin to believe that the old
laws of business don't apply to this new medium.
Nobody wants to be left behind, fueling a frenzy of
business ventures—many built on shaky foundations.

In early 2000, business fundamentals reassert

themselves. In one year, technology stocks lose
about 60% of their value. The boom and bust have
their greatest effect in the San Francisco Bay Area,
home of Silicon Valley as well as many previous
booms from the Gold Rush on.
2004

Google’s IPO and the New, Slow Boom

Noogler (new Googler) hat worn by fresh recruits

In 2004, Google is the first major Web company to

float a publicly traded stock since the go-go days of
the dot-com boom. This is a direct result of Google
solving the eternal problem plaguing all previous
search engines – how to profit from search. The
secret turns out to be a discreet form of advertising,
based on auctioning off keywords to appear as
"sponsored results" within a search results page.
Many people take Google's Initial Public Offering
(IPO) as a sign that the Web is not only back from its
deep trough after the crash but entering a new
period of expansion, and many other IPOs follow
Beneath it all, of course, the Web continues to
steadily grow as it has since the early 1990s.

“Web 2.0” brings back Interactivity

Blogger, launched in 1999

The original Web concept, and many pre-Web

systems, had depended heavily on user
contributions. Yet many 1990s Web sites had been
more like traditional TV or radio broadcasting, with
providers feeding content to passive surfers. Partly
this had been because dominant Web browsers
lacked editing capability. From the early 2000s a
number of sites begin helping users generate and
shape content: wikis, blogs, social networking sites,
and more. Photo and video sharing sites take
advantage of the spread of faster Internet
connections to let users both upload and browse
those media.

O’Reilly and Associates popularizes the name “Web

2.0” with their 2004 conference of that name. Most
browsers still don't support Web page editing, but
Web 2.0 sites find various workarounds – from wiki
and blogging software to commenting features – to
give users a voice.
2006

“The Cloud”: Computer utilities return

Salesforce.com specializes in cloud computing

In the 1960s when computers were extremely

expensive, a number of companies had offered what
were called computer utilities. They would run your
programs and store your data on their computer,
which you would access with a terminal. As time
went on cheaper computers had made it more
economical for companies and eventually individuals
to maintain their own workstations and PCs. But in
the Web era, the economies of scale that evolved
from large commercial Web servers had begun to tip
the balance back the other way.

Starting in the mid 2000s the computer utility model

starts to became fashionable again under the name
“The Cloud,” and is once again a major trend in both
networking and computing. Amazon's 2006 Elastic
Compute Cloud helps popularize the idea. Today,
cloud-based companies offer nearly any software or
service – including data storage – that could be done
on a personal computer or on larger machines run by
a company’s IT department.
2009

The Mobile Web hits the Mass Market

App Store
By the late 2000s, 3G networks for higher speed
mobile data had been spreading fast. The iPhone’s
phenomenal popularity creates a new computing
platform that brings mobile Web browsing to a large
audience. Google’s Android mobile platform soon
makes that audience even larger. The App store
model used by the iPhone and then Android is based
on Apple’s earlier success with iTunes. But because
proprietary apps run directly over the Internet, they
are not part of the public Web – and present a risk of
fragementing it as a standard.