First Handout

A brief timeline of Internet developments

1958 US ARPA (advanced research projects agency) established to lead science and military
technological developments.

1961 MIT research paper of Packet Switching Theory.

1961-69 Ongoing research into inter-computer communications and networks.

1969 ARPANET, commissioned by US Defense Department, goes live.
US universities connect up network facilities for the first time.

1971 Ray Tomlinson creates first network email application.

1973 Development of protocols to enable multi-network Internet opportunities.
First international ARPANET connections made.

1976 HM Queen Elizabeth II sends an email.

1978 First spam email is recorded.

1980 Tim Berners-Lee develops rules for the World Wide Web and is credited as the Web Father.
Alan Emtage develops the first search tool known as ‘ARCHIE’.

1982 Standard network protocols are established: Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) and Internet
Protocol (IP), commonly referred to as TCIP/IP.

1984 Joint Academic Network (JANET) is established, linking higher education institutions.
Domain Name System (DNS) is introduced.

1985 A company named Symbolics becomes the first registered dot.com domain.

1987 National Science Foundation (US) is the catalyst for the surge in funded work into the Internet.
Number of Internet hosts increases significantly in this period.

1988-90 28 countries sign up to hook up to the NSFNET, reinforcing international Internet potential.

1990 Senator Al Gore coins the term ‘information superhighway’.

1991 Web Father, Tim Berners-Lee releases World Wide Web (www) with scientists from CERN.

1992 America Online (AOL) is launched and raises $23m in floatation.
The term ‘surfing the net’ is introduced by Jean Armour Polly.
The World Bank goes online.

1993 Mainstream media attention increases awareness of the Internet.
First Internet publication, Wired, goes on sale.
Mosaic introduces the first web browser with graphical interface and is the forerunner of Netscape Navigator.
First online shopping malls and virtual banks emerge as does evidence of spam.
First clickable banner advert is sold by Global Network Navigator to a law firm.

1995 Amazon is launched by Jeff Bezos.
Trial dial up systems such as AOL and CompuServe launch.
Charging is introduced for domain names.
Search technology companies such as Alta Vista, Infoseek, Excite and Metacrawler rapidly appear.

1996 Yahoo! is launched on the stock exchange and shares are up nearly 300% on first day.

1997 MP3.com is founded.
The term “search engine optimisation” is used for the first time in a forum.

1998 XML is released to enable compatibility between different computer systems.
Google founded by Larry Page and Sergey Brin.

1999 Peter Merholz coins the word “blog”.

2000 AOL and Time-Warner announce they are merging.
Pay-per-Click campaigns are introduced for top ten search rankings.
Google AdWords launches, charging for adverts.

Dotcom bubble bursts

2002 UK online monthly consumer shopping breaks through the £1 billion barrier.
Google AdWords charges on a PPC basis instead of CPM.

2003 eBay topples Amazon as the most visited UK web site.

2005 Iceland leads the world with broadband penetration: 26.7 inhabitants per 100 have broadband compared with 15.9 per 100 in the UK.

2006 Google buys YouTube for $1.6 billion.
Facebook membership opens to anyone.
Technorati notes that a blog is created every second of every day.
Time Magazine names “You” as person of the year, due to online activity.

2008 Firefox 3.0 launches with over 8 million downloads in 24 hours.
Internet usage tops 1,407,724,920 worldwide.










































INTERNET

In its simplest form, the Internet is a collection of connected documents or objects.

Hyperlinks are what connect these documents.

A hyperlink is a virtual link from one document on the World Wide Web to another. It includes the URL of the linked-to document which describes where on the Internet a document is. It is what you enter in the address bar of the browser, because it is the address of that document on the Internet.

A URL provides information to both browsers and people. URLs include domain names which translate to IP addresses. Every web site corresponds to an IP address, which is a structured series of dots and numbers indicating where it is physically located. When you enter a URL into the address bar of a browser, the Domain Name System record indicates where the document is that you are linking to.
What is the difference between the Net and the Web?
A: The Internet ('Net) is a network of networks. Basically it is made from computers and cables. What Vint Cerf and Bob Kahn did was to figure out how this could be used to send around little "packets" of information. As Vint points out, a packet is a bit like a postcard with a simple address on it. If you put the right address on a packet, and gave it to any computer which is connected as part of the Net, each computer would figure out which cable to send it down next so that it would get to its destination. That's what the Internet does. It delivers packets - anywhere in the world, normally well under a second.
Lots of different sort of programs use the Internet: electronic mail, for example, was around long before the global hypertext system I invented and called the World Wide Web ('Web). Now, videoconferencing and streamed audio channels are among other things which, like the Web, encode information in different ways and use different languages between computers ("protocols") to provide a service.
The Web is an abstract (imaginary) space of information. On the Net, you find computers -- on the Web, you find document, sounds, videos,.... information.
On the Net, the connections are cables between computers; on the Web, connections are hypertext links. The Web exists because of programs which communicate between computers on the Net. The Web could not be without the Net. The Web made the net useful because people are really interested in information (not to mention knowledge and wisdom!) and don't really want to have know about computers and cables.