Chapter 1. Internet Background - Rapid Expansion - High Points In History.
Look Before
You Web

© 2001 - Barry Wroobel - Discovery Data Systems, inc.

Chapter 1. Internet Background - Rapid Expansion - High Points In History.
(note: Set the left and right printer margins to 0.25" for printing)

What's so hard about making a website anyway ? A little Java, some fancy borders, lots of pretty graphics, you're done ! Right ? …… Wrong !

As fast as businesses realized the reach of the Internet, the novelty was gone. Having a web presence today has become almost as commonplace as having a telephone and fax. With very few exceptions, any business dealing with the open market, needs to be visible on the web. The Internet is the equivalent of having a giant magazine that covers almost every interest imaginable. This is a huge magazine, that is published hourly, and has over 1 billion pages! Unlike any other medium, it makes very little, or no distinction between the big boys and the startups!"

The time for fancy Web pages with pretty pictures came and went like a flash! Remember when color print advertising made you the big boy on the block? Well fancy graphics are everywhere and it does not tell anyone anything about who your are on the Internet. Companies big and small are finding out that having a website is not a sure fire way to make a fortune. Today, almost every single web business is finding that making a web business successful requires the same old marketing tools as any other business. A product on the shelf and a website does not mean "they will come!". Further, it takes more to build a good website than hiring a good programmer. Many companies are finding out the hard way it is more important to design their website based on good marketing and worry about technical "stuff" later.

So, "What's so hard about making a website anyway?" A website is no different than any other marketing tool. Getting the point across has always been paramount. The Internet is no different! Many web designers are marketing themselves as being able to build in all the "bells and whistles" you could dream of. I guess if you are selling Internet bells and whistles, this is great. But for the rest of us, this can be a disaster. It is the same as asking a carpenter to build you a house. All carpenters can nail boards together. But unless you start with a clear marketing goal, and a good plan to fill a specific need, you mainly get a pile of boards nailed together.

1. Internet Background - Rapid Expansion - High Points In History.

Time Line Info courtesy http://info.isoc.org/guest/zakon/Internet/History/HIT.html

1957 US forms the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA)

1961 Leonard Kleinrock First paper on packet-switching (PS) theory

1967 First design paper on ARPANET published by Larry Roberts: "Multiple Computer Networks
and Intercomputer Communication

1969 ARPANET commissioned by DoD for research into networking
Node 1: UCLA (30 August, hooked up 2 September)
Network Information Center (NIC)

1972 Ray Tomlinson (BBN) modifies e-mail program for ARPANET where it becomes a quick
hit. The @ sign was chosen from the punctuation keys on Tomlinson's Model 33 Teletype
for its "at" meaning (March)
Larry Roberts writes first e-mail management program (RD) to list, selectively read, file,
forward, and respond to messages (July)
First computer-to-computer chat takes place at UCLA, and is repeated during ICCC, as
psychotic PARRY (at Stanford) discusses its problems with the Doctor (at BBN).

1973 First international connections to the ARPANET: University College of London (England)
via (Norway)

1974 Vint Cerf and Bob Kahn publish "A Protocol for Packet Network Interconnection" which
specified in detail the design of a Transmission Control Program (TCP). [IEEE Trans
Comm] (:amk:) BBN opens Telenet, the first public packet data service (a commercial
version of ARPANET)

1978 TCP split into TCP and IP (March)

1980 ARPANET grinds to a complete halt on 27 October because of an accidentally-
propagated status-message virus

1983 Name server developed at Univ of Wisconsin, no longer requiring users to know the
exact path to other systems

1986 NSFNET created (backbone speed of 56Kbps)
NSF establishes 5 super-computing centers to provide high-computing power for all. This
allows an explosion of connections, especially from universities.

1987 Number of hosts breaks 10,000

1988 2 November - Internet worm burrows through the Net, affecting ~6,000 of the 60,000
hosts on the Internet (:ph1:)

1989 Number of hosts breaks 100,000

1990 ARPANET ceases to exist

1991 Gopher released by Paul Lindner and Mark P. McCahill from the Univ of Minnesota
World-Wide Web (WWW) released by CERN; Tim Berners-Lee developer (:pb1:)

1992 Number of hosts breaks 1,000,000

1993 InterNIC created by NSF to provide specific Internet services
directory and database services (AT&T)
registration services (Network Solutions Inc.)
information services (General Atomics/CERFnet)
Worms of a new kind find their way around the Net - WWW Worms (W4), joined by
Spiders, Wanderers, Crawlers, and Snakes .
Businesses and media begin taking notice of the Internet
Mosaic takes the Internet by storm; WWW proliferates at a 341,634% annual growth rate
of service traffic. Gopher's growth is 997%.

1994 ARPANET/Internet celebrates 25th anniversary
Commercial companies start advertising and sales on internet
NSFNET traffic passes 10 trillion bytes/month
Top 10 Domains by Host #: com, edu, uk, gov, de, ca, mil, au, org, net

1995 Sun launches JAVA on May 23
RealAudio, an audio streaming technology, lets the Net hear in near real-time
Radio HK, the first commercial 24 hr., Internet-only radio station starts broadcasting
Traditional online dial-up systems (Compuserve, America Online, Prodigy) begin to provide
Internet access
A number of Net related companies go public, with Netscape leading the pack with the 3rd
largest ever NASDAQ IPO share value (9 August)
Registration of domain names is no longer free. Beginning 14 September, a $50 annual fee
has been imposed, which up until now was subsidized by NSF. NSF continues to pay for
.edu registration, and on an interim basis for .gov

1996 Internet phones catch the attention of US telecommunication companies who ask the
US Congress to ban the technology (which has been around for years)

1997 71,618 mailing lists registered at Liszt, a mailing list directory
Longest hostname registered with InterNIC:
CHALLENGER.MED.SYNAPSE.UAH.UALBERTA.CA
101,803 Name Servers in whois database

1998 Network Solutions registers its 2 millionth domain on 4 May
Electronic postal stamps become a reality, with the US Postal Service allowing stamps to
be purchased and downloaded for printing from the Web.

1999 Free computers are all the rage (as long as you sign a long term contract for Net
service) 2000 The US timekeeper (USNO) and a few other time services around the world
report the new year as 19100 on 1 Jan
A massive denial of service attack is launched against major websites, including Yahoo,
Amazon, and eBay in early February
web size estimates by NEC-RI and Inktomi surpass 1 billion indexable pages

Needless to say, the current explosion has led to almost every facet of business selling every conceivableproduct and service imaginable.

© 2001 - Barry Wroobel - Discovery Data Systems, inc.
(note: Set left and right printer margins to 0.25" for printing)