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The Introduction of .com
Domains such as .com, .org, .gov, .edu and .mil were introduced by Dr. Jon Postel. They were described to be "administrative entities". -
The Debut of Quantum Computer Services
This offered the services of email, electronic bulletin boards, and the news. It was created by Steve Case. Its name was later changed to "America Online". -
The Release of GIF
The developers at CompuServe released the Graphics Interchange Format, or GIF. This allowed for full colour on the Web and lossless, compressed images. -
The Creation of http
The hypertext transfer protocol, or http, was created by Tim Berners-Lee. It was a standardization that enabled access to internet sites for the diversity of computer platforms. -
"Spam" Becomes Internet Vocabulary
This was the beginning of commerce websites, which lead to mass marketing campaigns through emails. It was also at this time that the word "spam" was created. The concept existed before the name, however. -
The Debut of SSL
The company of Marc Andreessen, Netscape, developed Secure Socket Layer, or SSL. It was created with the purpose of encrypting sensitive data so that it would have security. -
The Debut of Dial-up Internet Access
This is referring to receiving Internet access by using a telephone line.This service was provided by CompuServe, America Online, and Prodigy. -
The First Internet Phone
The company VocalTec released Internet Phone, which was an application on desktop computers. Internet Phone was considered the first commercial Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), which meant that users can make phone calls on Internet-connected devices so long as the device had a microphone and speaker. It was able to work with even slow connections and Internet packet loss. -
The Birth of Hotmail
Hotmail was conceptualised by Sabeer Bhatia and Jack Smith. It was the first major Web-based email provider. Its creation allowed users on any networked computer to have what only Internet service providers had. -
The Release of ICQ
ICQ is named after the English phrase "I seek you" and was created by the company Mirabilis. It allowed for sending messages, files, and URLs. It was the first instant messaging client to be global and based on graphical user interface (GUI). -
The Creation of the Internet Archive
Brewster Kahle created the Internet Archive so that all the Web sites, text, images, video, and audio on the Internet would be recorded and archived. He wanted the archives to be available to everyone for free. -
"Weblog" is Coined
Weblogs are coined by Jorn Barger. Its namesake is the word "log", which is basically a diary of sorts. They consist of entries in reverse chronological order. -
The Creation of RSS
Really Simple Syndication or Rich Site Summary (there are multiple acronyms for RSS) was developed by Dave Winer. It allows Web site users to subscribe to content. Podcasts and blogs depends on RSS. -
The Release of SourceForge
SourceForge.net hosts open-source projects for developers from all around world. It allows for developing, downloading, reviewing, and publishing. -
The Birth of Gmail
At the time, Hotmail offered 2MB of storage for its free email service whereas Yahoo offered 4MB. When Google announced its new email service with 1GB of storage, it set the standard that Web-based email providers had to provide gigabytes of storage.
