Since its founding in 1989, the World Wide Web has touched the lives of billions of people around the world and fundamentally changed how we connect with others, the nature of our work, how we discover and share news and new ideas, how we entertain ourselves and how communities form and function.
The timeline below is the beginning of an effort to capture both the major milestones and small moments that have shaped the Web since 1989. It is a living document that we will update with your contributions. To suggest an item to add to the timeline, please message us.
1989
The World Wide Web begins as a CERN (European Organization for Nuclear Research) project called ENQUIRE, initiated by British scientist Tim Berners-Lee. Other names considered for the project include “The Information Mesh” and “The Mine of Information.”
The NeXT Computer used by Tim Berners-Lee at CERN. (Wikipedia)
42% of American adults have used a computer.
World’s first website and server go live at CERN, running on Tim Berners-Lee’s NeXT computer, which bears the message “This machine is a server. DO NOT POWER DOWN!”
Tim Berners-Lee develops the first Web browser WorldWideWeb.
Archie, the first tool to search the internet is developed by McGill University student Alan Emtage.
1991
Researchers rig up a live shot of a coffee pot so they could tell from their computer screens when a fresh pot had been brewed. Later connected to the World Wide Web, it becomes the first webcam.
The National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) releases Mosaic 1.0, the first web browser to become popular with the general public. “The web as we know it begins to flourish,” Wired later writes.
President Bill Clinton’s White House comes online.
Yahoo! is created by Stanford University graduate students Jerry Yang and David Filo. They originally named the site “Jerry and David’s Guide to the World Wide Web.”
The first banner ad for hotwired.com appears, with the text “Have you ever clicked your mouse right HERE? —> YOU WILL.”
Amazon.com opens for business, billing itself as the “Earth’s Biggest Bookstore.”
Craig Newmark starts craigslist, originally an email list of San Francisco events.
Match.com, the first online dating site, launches.
Entrepreneur Pierre Omidyar launches eBay, originally named “AuctionWeb.” He lists the first item for sale: a broken laser pointer. A collector purchases it for $14.83.
Chris Lamprecht becomes the first person to be banned from the internet by judicial decree. “I told the judge computers were my life,” Lamprecht later recalled.
The Dancing Baby, a 3D animation, becomes one of the first viral videos.
1997
Millions “visit Mars – on the internet” – the Jet Propulsion Lab allows people to watch the Sojourner rover landing and exploration of Mars. The broadcast generates about 40 million to 45 million hits each day.
The Internet Corporations for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) takes over responsibility for the coordination of the global internet’s systems of unique identifiers.
MP3 downloading service Napster launches, overloading high-speed networks in college dormitories. Many colleges ban the service and it is later shut down for enabling the illegal sharing of music files.
32% of internet users (over 30 million people) sent e-greeting cards to loved ones and friends.
The NASDAQ spiked in the late 90s and then fell sharply.
The NASDAQ hits a record high of 5,048, before plunging by 78% during the dot com bust. A 2001 survey finds 71% of Americans who had heard about the dot com troubles believe a major cause of the dot-com woes is that investors were eager to make a lot of money and took at lot of risks.
AOL acquires Time Warner for $165 billion. New York Times says “it could be the internet companies that do the buying and the old media that sell out.”
2001
Only 3% of internet users say they got most of their information about the 9/11 attacks and the aftermath from the internet.
The average internet user spends 83 minutes online.
Jimmy Wales launches Wikipedia. Users write over 20,000 encyclopedia entries in the first year.
2002
55 million people now go online from work and 44% of those who have internet access at work say their use of the internet helps them do their jobs.
Screenshot by Wired
Social networking site Friendster.com launches, but is quickly overtaken by Facebook.
Microsoft launches Xbox Live, its online multiplayer gaming service.”Critics scoffed at the idea, noting how uncommon broadband connections were at the time.”
Harvard student Mark Zuckerberg launches thefacebook.com. 1,200 Harvard students sign up within the first 24 hours. Facebook goes on to become the world’s biggest social networking site, with over a billion users worldwide.
Google starts trading on the NASDAQ at $85 a share.
Social news website Digg launches. Digg users vote to “digg up” links that they like and “bury” down those they don’t.
Community news site Reddit is founded. It is bought by Conde Nast a year later for $20 million.
Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. buys MySpace for $580 million and sells it in 2011 for $35 million.
YouTube is founded on Valentine’s Day. The first video, an explanation of what’s cool about elephants, is uploaded by co-founder Jawed Karim on April 23. Google acquires the company a year later.
2006
The late Senator Ted Stevens describes the internet as “a series of tubes,” during a 2006 speech on net neutrality. His quote is mocked by Boing Boing and the Daily Show and inspires YouTube remixes.
Facebook reaches 1 billion monthly active users, making it the dominant social network worldwide. Some analysts start calling it “Facebookistan.” The company buys Instagram for $1 billion and debuts on NASDAQ at $38 a share.
South Korean music star PSY’s “Gangnam Style” video surpasses Justin Bieber’s “Baby” as the most viewed video ever, with over 800 million views.
Former CIA employee and NSA contractor Edward Snowden turns over thousands of classified documents to media organizations, exposing a top-secret government data surveillance program.
Apple says app store downloads top 40 billion, with 20 billion in 2012 alone.
Twitter files for its long-awaited IPO. Shares soar 73% above their IPO price of $26 a share on the first day of trading.
