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In the late 1950's the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) was founded in the United States with the primary focus of developing information technologies that could survive a nuclear attack. ( Networking the Nerds )In 1967 ARPA university and private sector contractors met with representatives of the Department of Defense to discuss possible protocols for sharing information via computers. In 1969, two years before the calculator was introduced to consumers ( History of the Internet and WWW ) and the year after National Public Radio was established, the precursor of the Internet, ARPANET, was born. It connected four sites at the University of California at Los Angeles, the University of California at Santa Barbara, Stanford Research Institute, and the University of Utah. Throughout the 1970's researchers concentrated on developing protocols for controlling networks, moving messages across a system of networks, and allowing for remote access to the networks. There were computers connected at about two dozen sites when the first email was sent in 1972, but the number of sites and messages soon mushroomed. By 1975 there were 63 sites. In 1980, 200 host computers were connecting 20,000 people at university, military, and government locations. Twelve years later the number of hosts had grown to more than a million internationally ( PBS Timeline ), and in January of 1999 there were more than 43 million. ( Hobbes' Internet Timeline v4.1 )

If the 1970's were a time of research, the 1980's were a time of development. The TCP/IP protocol was introduced in 1983, and at the University of Wisconsin the name server was developed. The next year domain name server (DNS) was established. In 1986, the National Science Foundation developed a system to connect the growing number of hosts. Regional networks were connected to a backbone network, which became known as the NSFNET. As the "Internet" continued to grow and prosper, ARPANET came to an end in 1989 ( PBS Timeline ) just before HTML protocol was introduced in 1990. HTML allowed graphics to be sent along with text to create hypertext pages customized to the sender's preference. ( Networking the Nerds ) Everything was now in place for explosive growth.

Commercial Development

Commercial contractors have been involved in the development of ARPANET from its inception. As Tang and Teflon began as curiosities of the space program and later became common consumer products, so too have email, web research, and home shopping on the Web. It has only been ten years since the first relay between a commercial entity (MCI Mail) and the Internet was made. Since that time technologies have emerged that have fueled the growth of private enterprise on the Web. In 1992 Paul Linder and Mark McCahill at the University of Minnesota released Gopher, a tool that allowed researchers to retrieve specific data from myriad locations. The next year Mosaic, a web browser, was developed at the University of Illinois by Netscape founder Marc Andreesen, the World Wide Web became a public domain, and the Pentium processor was introduced by Intel to speed up the whole process. ( From ARAPNET to World Wide Web ) As the technology advanced, the Internet became easier to use and the World Wide Web sites became more intricate and inviting. In 1994 shopping malls arrived on the Net. You could order pizza from Pizza Hut online, buy camouflague clothes or bank at First Virtual Bank, the first cyberbank. Of course, the advancements came with a downside. Vladimir Levin of Russia became the first publicly known Internet bank robber when he used the Internet to illegally transfer funds to his account. ( Hobbes' Internet Timeline v4.1 )

1995 saw the introduction of several emerging technologies such as JAVA and JAVAscript, Virtual Environments, and RealAudio which further enhanced the kind of product information which could be made available to consumers. Commercial users now outnumbered research and academic users by a two to one margin, and Bill Gates decided to redefine Microsoft as an Internet company. ( History of the Internet ) Today one can shop online for books, boots, food and wine, travel, clothes and real estate. Other business activities include buying stocks and bonds, banking, and retirement planning. Online shopping accounted for over $9 billion in 1997 and is expected to be $30 billion by the year 2000. In light of this growth, the U.S. Commerce Department will begin studying the impact of online shopping on total retail activity. ( Commerce Department to Measure Online Sales ) Consumer spending via the Internet draws much interest, but business to business activity is also booming. The consulting group Piper Jaffray estimates that by the year 2001 Internet based business to business transactions will total US $201.6 billion. Forrester Research estimates that by 2002 online business to business transactions will total US $327 billion, ( Internet Statistics ), while other projections indicate that by 2003, consumers will spend $108 billion, while businesses will spend $1.3 trillion. ( Spotlight: Corporate E-commerce Kicks Into Gear )

For further information on the history of the Internet, an extensive list of links may be found at the Internet Society Web site ).

Internet Timeline

1969

ARPA (Advanced Research Projects Agency) goes online in December, connecting four major U.S. universities. Designed for research, education, and government organizations, it provides a communications network linking the country in the event that a military attack destroys conventional communications systems.

1972

Electronic mail is introduced by Ray Tomlinson, a Cambridge, Mass., computer scientist. He uses the @ to distinguish between the sender's name and network name in the email address.

1973

Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) is designed and in 1983 it becomes the standard for communicating between computers over the Internet. One of these protocols, FTP (File Transfer Protocol), allows users to log onto a remote computer, list the files on that computer, and download files from that computer.

1976

Presidential candidate Jimmy Carter and running mate Walter Mondale use email to plan campaign events.

Queen Elizabeth sends her first email. She's the first state leader to do so.

1982

The word “Internet” is used for the first time.

1984

Domain Name System (DNS) is established, with network addresses identified by extensions such as .com, .org, and .edu.

Writer William Gibson coins the term “cyberspace.”

1985

Quantum Computer Services, which later changes its name to America Online, debuts. It offers email, electronic bulletin boards, news, and other information.

1988

A virus called the Internet Worm temporarily shuts down about 10% of the world's Internet servers.

1989

The World (world.std.com) debuts as the first provider of dial-up Internet access for consumers.

Tim Berners-Lee of CERN (European Laboratory for Particle Physics) develops a new technique for distributing information on the Internet. He calls it the World Wide Web. The Web is based on hypertext, which permits the user to connect from one document to another at different sites on the Internet via hyperlinks (specially programmed words, phrases, buttons, or graphics). Unlike other Internet protocols, such as FTP and email, the Web is accessible through a graphical user interface.

1990

The first effort to index the Internet is created by Peter Deutsch at McGill University in Montreal, who devises Archie, an archive of FTP sites.

1991

Gopher, which provides point-and-click navigation, is created at the University of Minnesota and named after the school mascot. Gopher becomes the most popular interface for several years.

Another indexing system, WAIS (Wide Area Information Server), is developed by Brewster Kahle of Thinking Machines Corp.

1993

Mosaic is developed by Marc Andreeson at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA). It becomes the dominant navigating system for the World Wide Web, which at this time accounts for merely 1% of all Internet traffic.

1994

The White House launches its website, www.whitehouse.gov.

Initial commerce sites are established and mass marketing campaigns are launched via email, introducing the term “spamming” to the Internet vocabulary.

Marc Andreessen and Jim Clark start Netscape Communications. They introduce the Navigator browser.

1995

CompuServe, America Online, and Prodigy start providing dial-up Internet access.

Sun Microsystems releases the Internet programming language called Java.

The Vatican launches its own website, www.vatican.va.

1996

Approximately 45 million people are using the Internet, with roughly 30 million of those in North America (United States and Canada), 9 million in Europe, and 6 million in Asia/Pacific (Australia, Japan, etc.). 43.2 million (44%) U.S. households own a personal computer, and 14 million of them are online.

1997

On July 8, 1997, Internet traffic records are broken as the NASA website broadcasts images taken by Pathfinder on Mars. The broadcast generates 46 million hits in one day.

1999

College student Shawn Fanning invents Napster, a computer application that allows users to swap music over the Internet.
The number of Internet users worldwide reaches 150 million by the beginning of 1999. More than 50% are from the United States.
“E-commerce” becomes the new buzzword as Internet shopping rapidly spreads.

2000

To the chagrin of the Internet population, deviant computer programmers begin designing and circulating viruses with greater frequency. “Love Bug” and “Stages” are two examples of self-replicating viruses that send themselves to people listed in a computer user's email address book. The heavy volume of email messages being sent and received forces many infected companies to temporarily shut down their clogged networks.
The Internet bubble bursts, as the fountain of investment capital dries up and the Nasdaq stock index plunges, causing the initial public offering (IPO) window to slam shut and many dotcoms to close their doors.

2001

Napster is dealt a potentially fatal blow when the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco rules that the company is violating copyright laws and orders it to stop distributing copyrighted music. The file-swapping company says it is developing a subscription-based service.
About 9.8 billion electronic messages are sent daily.

2002

As of January, 58.5% of the U.S. population (164.14 million people) uses the Internet. Worldwide there are 544.2 million users.
The death knell tolls for Napster after a bankruptcy judge ruled in September that German media giant Bertelsmann cannot buy the assets of troubled Napster Inc. The ruling prompts Konrad Hilbers, Napster CEO, to resign and lay off his staff.

2003

It's estimated that Internet users illegally download about 2.6 billion music files each month.
Spam, unsolicited email, becomes a server-clogging menace. It accounts for about half of all emails.
Apple Computer introduces Apple iTunes Music Store, which allows people to download songs for 99 cents each.

Americans increasingly use the Internet to conduct research for their jobs, to make transactions, and share worries and seek advice through emails

WASHINGTON, DC -- (March 4, 2002) -- As Americans gain experience online, they use the Internet more for their jobs, to make more online purchases and carry out other financial transactions, and to write emails with more significant and intimate content.

A new report from the Pew Internet & American Life Project compares a group of Internet users' online behavior between March 2000 and March 2001. The report on these findings, called "Getting Serious Online," shows that over time Internet users become more purposeful, efficient, and self-assured in using the Web and email to support some of life's most important activities.

"The Internet has gone from novelty to utility for many Americans," says Lee Rainie, Director of the Pew Internet & American Life Project. "They are beginning to take it for granted, but they can't imagine life without it."

Greater use of the Internet at work is one major reason for this increased seriousness online. In a separate survey in January 2002, we found that 55 million Americans now go online from work, up from 43 million who went online at work in March 2000. The longitudinal research shows that on a typical day, 36% of Americans with Internet access on the job were doing work-related research in March 2001, up from 25% a year earlier. Further, 44% of those who have Internet access at work say online tools improve their ability to do their jobs.

Other examples of Americans increasingly significant use of the Internet:

Large growth in serious email

The use of email for sharing worries or seeking advice is now routine among Internet users. By March 2001, 51 million Americans had emailed family members for advice, up from 30 million in 2000-a 70% increase in a year. Similarly, 51 million Americans said they had emailed a friend for advice, compared to 32 million Americans who had done this by March 2000. This pattern extends to emailing family members to express worries, with about 40 million American having done this in March 2001, compared to 25 million a year earlier.

"It's easy to see how people take advantage of a growing network," says John B. Horrigan, Senior Research Specialist with the Pew Internet Project. "Each friend who gets Internet access and each grandmother who sends her first email builds the community of Internet users. The larger the community gets, the more likely it is that people will turn to email to share intimate and crucial communications."

More online transactions 

The share of Internet users who had bought products online grew from 47% of Internet users in March 2000 to 53% in March 2001. The proportion who had purchased travel services had grown from 34% to 42%. The number who had done online banking grew from 17% to 23%. And the percent of those who had participated in online auctions grew from 14% to 20%. People also expanded their range of online activities over the course of the year from an average of 11 to 14 different types of uses of the Internet.

Americans' more serious approach to the Internet has been accompanied by evidence of increasing efficiency online and shifts in the allocation in time between online and offline activities. An average surfer spent 7 fewer minutes online during a typical day's activity online in March 2001 than in March 2000. In addition:

29% Internet users who have bought something online said their Internet use has resulted in their spending less time shopping in stores.

25% of Internet users said they spend less time watching television because of the Internet. 14% of Internet users said their time online has decreased the time they spend reading newspapers.

14% of Internet users said the Net increased the amount of time they spent working at home. And 10% say their use of the Internet increases the amount of time they spend at the office.

The Pew Internet & American Life Project's new report is based on a survey of 1,501 Americans from March 1 through March 31, 2001. Some 57% of them were Internet users. These same people had been interviewed by the Project's polling partner, Princeton Survey Research Associates, between March 1 and March 31, 2000. At that time, 46% of them were Internet users. The margin of error in this survey is plus or minus three percentage points.

The Pew Internet & American Life Project is a nonpartisan, independent research organization funded by the Pew Charitable Trusts to study the impact of the Internet on families, communities, health care, education, civic and political life, and the work place.

 

Is Google Going Open Source? Chris Richardson | Contributing Writer

Not quite, but, the number one search engine is planning on releasing SOME of its code to the public, according to The Age, an Australian news site. News of this came as Google reps are visiting Melbourne, with the idea of opening a research and development center.

Wayne Rosing, speaking to students at a recruiting event, said, "there have been a lot of conversations in the company in the past two months about (how) . . . it's time for us to give something back. So our technical director, Craig Silverstein, has started a project to look at all the Google code and start figuring out what parts of it we want to give back."

Google does not want to keep all of the smart people they hire from around the globe, and the innovations they give Google, to themselves. Google wants higher education facilities to have access to its tools so they can begin to prepare future developers.

On this thought, Rosing stated, "we need to have the tools out in the universities so the next generation can build on our work, too." The group stated they foresee Google's workforce growing from 700 to 2100 members, over the next year.

 

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