History of Online Journalism

By natalia roque

  • Ted Nelson, Harvard sociology student formulates the concept of hypertext

  • Nelson, now a sociology prof. at Vassar College in upstate New York

    GIves a lecutre which is covered in the student newspaper. The first print reference of "hypertext" appears, Feb. 3,1965

  • ARPANET computer network created by the U.S Defense Department

    The foreruner of today's Internet. Their goal: Design a computer network to withstand a nuclear attack. Building the network that way lays the foundation for the Internet as a medium that is controlled by no single entity.

  • The BBC files for a patent on "Teledata", the first teletext system

    Teletext is a loop of "pages" broadcast on TV. It's not interactive, service is limited to a few hundred available pages and it's slow.

  • The organization in charge is now called DARPA( Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency)

  • The British Post Office's Research Laboratory demonstrates "Viewdata"(later "Prestel") the first Videotext service

    It's truly a interactive, supporting two-way communication. You use your TV, hooked up to cable and a phone line. You make entries using a keyboard, dedicated terminal or computer. Menu-driven systems allow users to browse and it has better graphics than teletext; even photo display.

  • Canada begins development of Telidon, an advanced videotext system.

    It goes into operation in 1979 and is considered a world leader with advanced graphics technology.

  • First computed based online dial-up services emerge Eg: Compuserve, The Source and Prodigy.

    Those are closed systems, only subscribers have access.

  • Time Magazine names the computer "Machine of the Year".

  • Apple introduces the Macintosh computer.

    Cost $2,495 US with built-in B&W monitor. Within 75 days, 50,000 are sold.

  • Worldwide 22 nations are said to be involved in videotext and teletext.

  • Computers readily available in university computer labs, offices

    Computers becoming cheaper and more powerful; first personal printers appear; ($7,000 US for an Apple LaserWriter)

  • Internet Relay Chat(ICR, a forebearer to instant messaging) is developed by Finnish graduate student Jarkko Oikarinen

    DARPA makes the Internet public.

  • Hypertext Markup Language is invented by Tim Berners-Lee, an Englishman, and colleagues at CERN, the European Particle Physics Laboratory

  • Lynx, a non-graphical Web and Gopher( FTP) "browser" is released by the University of Kansas

    in November they were 26 "reasonably reliable" servers exist on the World Wide Web, according to CERN.

  • Mosaic, first graphical Web browser for Windows, is released by the University of Illinois.

    It causes the web to grow at a 341,634% annual rate of service traffic. In September 25, CompuServe, Prodigy and AOL have a combined 3.9 million U.S. subscribers. In October the firs journalism site on the Web is launched at the University of Florida. There are now about 200 web servers in the world. In December, the first article about the Web appears in New York Times.

  • The first newspaper to regularly publish on the Web, the Palo Alto Weekly in California, begins twice-weekly postings of its full content.

    in April, the Yahoo "Internet Index" is started by Stanford PhD candidates David Filo and Jerry Yang. In June, the first Canadian newspaper, the Helifax Daily News goes online.

  • Oklahoma City Bombing

    The first major event in which people turn to the Internet for current information. In May, more than 150 news outlets in North America now have online editionsIn October, the Boston Globe launches boston.com on the Web, a unique site bringing many local services together.

  • May: more than 150 news outlets in North America now have online editions

    In October, the Boston Globe launches boston.com on the Web, a unique site bringing many local services together.

  • "Heaven's Gate" suicides

    The internet becomes part of a major news when members of Heave's Gate cult create a website before commiting suicide. In March, false reports emerge online that TWA flight 800 was brought down by a US. navy missile. The Smoking Gun debuts, it publishes entire court documents and other primary sources online. The Dallas News online edition gets an exclusive that Timothy McVeigh claimed responsability for Oklahoma Bombing. First time a mainstream news breaks a major story in a website.

  • Early reports of U.S President Clinto's imvolvement with White House intern Monica Lewinsky demonstrate how a small independent news site can seize a national news agenda

    A media frenzy follows in both, the online and traditional press. In Sept. Starr Report, a new realtionship between politicians and the public. Starr bypasses the press and distributes a major political document online first.

  • Mainstream news sites begin to involve their audience

    With the death of Pierre Trudeau thousands of Canadians tell their stories on news websites.

  • Online news operations stumble and then recover.

  • Classified listings flee print and take money with them

    Canada.com moves to paid subscription model. Breaking news is free and other content requires money. The dawn of citizen journalism, blogging software makes web publishing easy and eliminates the ned to know HTML. The "Baghdad Blogger" captivates the world.

  • Bloggers lead the way in forcing CBS to retract its story on George W. Bush's military service

    Bloggers beat the mainstream media to tsunami-ravaged South-East Asia bringing home the reality of the event with amateur video.

  • Mainstream media starts harnessing user-generated video

    News sites rush to establish citizen communities. "The only sectors seeing general audience growth today are online, ethnic and alternative media."

  • Bloggers win protections in the U.S and acceptance in Canada

    "There still appears no clear path for transerring to this new medium all the wealth that has long financed journalism fir the goo of civil society."

  • Bloggers face greater legal scrutiny.

    Citize media grows in importance. New attemps at model for citizen journalism are made. In September, journalism sites move away from subscription-based news. Advertsing is seen as the only workable funding model.

  • News Web sites appear to be falling behind financially

    They are not growing in advertising revenue as quickly as other kinds of Internet destinations.These figures do not include the most important revenue source, seach, where news is a relaely small player.