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Arpanet
The first real network to run on packet switching technology. Computers at Stanford and UCLA connected for the first time. -
Email
Developed by Ray Tomlinson, who deciced to use the “@” symbol to separate the user from the computer name. -
Project Gutenberg and eBook
Project Gutenberg was a global effort to make books and documents in the public domain available electronically, for free, in a variety of eBook and electronic formats. -
Global Networking
Arpanet made the first trans-Atlantic connection with the University College of London -
Modern Email Program
The first modern email program was developed by John Vittal. The biggest technological advance this program (called MSG) made was the addition of “Reply” and “Forward” functionality. -
Bulletin Board System
The first bulletin board system (BBS) was developed during a blizzard in Chicago. -
Spam
The first unsolicited commercial spam email message was sent out to 600 California Arpanet users by Gary Thuerk. -
Modern Emoticon
Scott Fahlman proposed using a simile face after a joke, rather than the original -) proposed by MacKenzie. -
Malicious Internet Based Worn Attack
First major malicious internet-based worm attack was released, referred to as “The Morris Worm”. -
AOL is launched
Apple pulled out of the AppleLink program and it was renamed America Online. -
World Wide Web Proposal
The proposal for the World Wide Web, written by Tim Berners-Lee; was originally called “Mesh”. -
Dial-Up Internet
The first commercial dial-up Internet provider, The World. -
Code for the World Wide Web
Tim Berners-Lee develops HTML, which continues to impact how we navigate and view the internet. -
MP3
The MP3 became a standard file format that was highly compressed, later became a popular file format to share songs and entire albums via the internet. -
Webcam
Deployed at a Cambridge University computer lab, to monitor a particular coffee maker so that lab users could avoid wasted trips to an empty coffee pot. -
Government Goes Live Online
The White House and the United Nations came online, using .gov and .org domain names. -
Yahoo!
Created by Jerry Yang and David Filo, two electrical engineering graduate students. Originally called "Jerry and David's Guide to the World Wide Web." -
Amazon
Internet’s transformation to a commercial enterprise with Amazon.com goes live. -
Craiglist
Craiglist joints the Internet’s transformation to a commercial enterprise. -
Ebay
Ebay joints the Internet’s transformation to a commercial enterprise. -
Match.com
The first online dating site, launches. -
Webmail Service HoTMaiL
First web-based (webmail) service. HoTMaiL (the capitalized letters are an homage to HTML) was launched. -
Netflix
Founded by Reed Hastings and Marc Randolph as a company that sends users DVDs by mail. -
Windows 95
PC makers can remove Microsoft's internet software on new versions of Windows 95. -
Google
Google went live, revolutionizing the way in which people find information online. -
Napster
Peer-to-peer file sharing becomes a reality as Napster arrives on the Internet -
Wikipedia
Wikipedia paved the way for collective web content generation/social media. -
VoIP goes mainstream.
Founded by Niklas Zennström of Sweden and Janus Friis of Denmark. Skype provided a user-friendly interface to Voice over IP calling. -
MySpace
MySpace began and becomes the most popular social network -
Safari
Safari debut and became the world's fastest browser. -
Facebook
“The” Facebook was launched and open to college students; was called “The Facebook”; later on, “The” was dropped from the name and the era of social networking began. -
Mozilla Firefox browser.
Mozilla unveils the Firefox browser, made by Mozilla Corporation, a wholly owned subsidiary of the not-for-profit Mozilla Foundation. -
YouTube
YouTube is an American online video sharing and social media platform owned by Google. -
Twitter
Founder Jack Dorsey; was originally going to be called twittr (inspired by Flickr); the first Twitter message was “just setting up my twttr”. -
Hulu
TV shows started online. Hulu is a joint venture between ABC, NBC, and Fox to make popular TV shows available to watch online. -
iPhone and the Mobile Web
The biggest innovation was the iPhone, which was responsible for renewed interest in mobile web applications and design. -
Pinterest
The social media sites Pinterest was created by Ben Silbermann, Paul Sciarra, and Evan Sharp. It is a "visual discovery tool" that was originally created for people to share ideas and inspiration for various interests and projects. -
Instagram
The social media site Instagram is an American photo and video sharing social networking service created by Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger. -
Tapping Into Communications
Edward Snowden, a former CIA employee and NSA contractor, reveals that the NSA had in place a monitoring program capable of tapping the communications of thousands of people. -
Zoom
Eric Yuan, a former Cisco engineer and executive, founded Zoom, a secure, reliable video platform powers all of your communication needs, including meetings, chat, phone, webinars, and online events. -
Google Assistant,
Google unveils Google Assistant, a voice-activated personal assistant program, joins Amazon's Alexa, Siri from Apple, and Cortana from Microsoft.