Then from 1982 to 1983, communications and protocols were being set up to make the Internet a place where more could carry on transactions of information. I am quite certain that those who worked on it in the 1970s had no idea how big or what the Internet would be today. Since then things have progressed at rates that boggle the mind. In 1984, the Internet actually came in to existence with over a thousand hosts using it. It was extremely slow and hard to use by today’s standards. Over the next 10 years the Internet expanded to over 1,000 times it’s size in 1984, but it wasn’t until 1993 that it became clear that it was ripe for use in almost every home and business. Many thousands of small ISPs (Internet Service Providers) opened their doors which produced the need for browsers. The Internet at that time was just a blank screen with a blinking cursor much like the TRS-80 personal computers of the late 70s and early 80s. A browser is a software program that takes the digital information from the Internet and converts it into easy-to-read pages and images. Mosaic and Gopher came out with theirs and opened the Internet to millions in 1993. A little over a year later, Netscape came out with theirs and set records on NASDAQ with their Initial Public Offering of stocks. Netscape should get a bundle of credit for making the Internet what it is today, a tool for anyone. AOL, Prodigy and CompuServe also helped to shape the Internet with their browsers although each of them limited their users to their own private Networks. They thought that they could conquer the Internet by limiting their users to their own networks, creating the illusion that they owned the Internet. Millions signed on with them and I was one of them until I learned that their networks were just provinces in the Internet world. It wasn’t until 1995 that they hooked up with "the main Internet" and let their users explore the rest of the world. AOL, Prodigy and CompuServe are still trying to conquer the Internet by creating browsers that try to keep their users confined to their networks. I don't blame them, I might too if I had the power they had. But it is for this reason and others that many experienced users leave their services for direct Internet connections. My recommendations are that you should have access to these services if you are a seller. Most of their users are not very adept at shopping the Internet, so it is wise to take your store into their networks. In 1996, the domain www.TV.com was sold for $15,000 and the domain name game officially began while the war between Netscape and Microsoft browsers produced incredible tools and encouraged great websites that have pushed the Internet into a new era. In 1997, www.Business.com sold for $150,000 and in the year following over 200,000 domains were registered. Today, just over 30 years since the first byte was sent, well over 16 million domains have been registered and the Internet is nearing 100 million users worldwide, the Jan 2000 report showed over 76 million. It is estimated that there are well over 1 billion pages up for viewing on the net today. Now that the Y2K bug has come and gone causing little damage, there will be many more logging on to see what the Internet is all about. I would expect the number of users to perhaps double within the next year. With that estimate, one can see that the Internet is going to be one of the world’s main tools for advertising and selling in the future. Before we go on about the Internet, it would be good to look at a few pieces of information about the history of the Internet. Most of this information was derived from Hobbes Internet Timeline at: http://www.isoc.org/guest/zakon/Internet/History/HIT.html I found it very interesting, you may too. |
1969 The first byte of information is transmitted across telephone lines to another computer. There are a total of 4 hosts.
1974 There are still less than 100 user hosts on-line, mostly universities doing research
1979 There are nearly 200 hosts on-line, still mostly universities.
1984 There are just over 1000 hosts logged on to the Internet and information was beginning to flow.
1985 The first Domain Name was assigned, www.Symbolics.com
1986 The backbone of the Internet is upgraded to 56Kbps, the speed of most modems sold today.
1987 The number of hosts exceeds 10,000
1988 Hosts exceed 60,000 and the backbone is upgraded to T1 (1.544 Mbps)
1989 Hosts exceed 100,000 and 18 countries are on-line
1990 The first Internet Service Provider called "The World" comes on line offering Internet Service to individuals, prior to this time the Internet was primarily used by universities and government agencies.
1991 The Backbone is upgraded to T3 (44.736Mbps) and 39 countries are on line.
1992 Hosts exceed 1,000,000 and the phrase "surfing the Internet" is coined by Jean Armour Polly
1993 Internic and Network Solutions are created for registration of domains. Mosaic, one of the early browsers, takes off and draws millions to the net. (I sign on with 1 month free with prodigy, 2400 bps modem, too slow, too much advertising, sign off 1 week later)
1994 Shopping malls arrive on the Internet. (I sign on with AOL, use up my free hours and get a bill for $80 and switch to server with unlimited hours for $20/MO and begin learning to use Netscape browser.) Top 10 domain suffixes are .com, edu, uk, gov, de, ca, mil, au, org, net
1995 Netscape shares skyrocket, search engines and JAVA are launched, Network Solutions begins charging $50 for domain registrations, prior to this time domain registrations were FREE! vBNS(very high speed Backbone Network Service) is launched bringing the back bone up to 155 Mbps. Top 10 domain suffixes are .com, edu, net, gov, mil, org, de, uk, ca, au
1996 TV.com sells to CNET for $15,000. Over 9000 domains dropped from InterNIC listing for not paying their bills. Backbone upgraded to 622 Mbps. Seven new domain suffixes are proposed....firm, store, web, arts, rec, info, nom. along with competitive Registrars. Number of Hosts exceeds 10 million. Top 10 suffixes are .com, edu, net, uk, de, jp, us, mil, ca, au
1997 www.Business.com is sold for $150,000. Over 100,000 domains are registered in the WHOIS database. Top 10 domain suffixes are .com, edu, net, jp, uk, de, us, au, ca, mil
1998 Over 2 million domains are registered through Network Solutions. www.altavista.com sells for $3.3 million to Compaq. Top 10 domain suffixes are .com, net, edu, mil, jp, us, uk, de, ca, au
1999 Construction to upgrade the Backbone to 2.5Gbps begins. Several new Registrars open up for business. Business.com sells for $7.5 million, 30 times the price paid just over 2 years prior. Top 10 domain suffixes are .com, net, edu, jp, uk, mil, us, de, ca, au
2000 Y2K passes and the world survives, actually there was very little to report, many clocks report the year as 100 or 19100 instead of 2000. The domain name game gets hot, domains can be purchased as low as $11 each in bulk. Domain Auction, Resale and Leasing sites pop up all over the Internet. (The World’s first Live-on-the-Net Homebirth/Waterbirth is broadcast on Jan 7 by yours truly at www.y2klivebirth.com.) ICANN meets in March to discuss the 7 new domain suffixes that have been proposed and procrastinates on the issue.
Number of hosts will likely exceed 100 million by the end of the year 2000.
Reference Links
Hobbes Internet Timeline---This is where most of the information on this page was derived from.
History of the Internet---This site begins with the invention of the telegragh and morse code and goes to 1997.
History Links providied by the Internet Society---Several links provided here, everyone referneces Hobbes Internet Timeline.
