A Brief History of the World Wide Web

The beginnings of the internet can be traced back to the mid-1960s. Before that time, businesses were able to share files and information within their own networks, but "internetwork" communication and file sharing were virtually nonexistent.

From the mid-1960s through the mid-1970s, companies developed internetwork capabilities to communicate and share files between networks. These internetworks functioned reasonably well but were still cumbersome, mostly due to the fact that there was no standard code or computer language to facilitate the sharing. Every network used its own code, meaning that the networks needed to not only communicate but translate as well.

In the mid to late 1970s, researchers worked to create a common language or interface for networks. The result of this search for a common language was the Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol, or TCP/IP. The advent of TCP/IP kicked off the spread of the internet to most of the world. By the end of the 1980s, most nations in Europe and Asia were connected to networks all over the world. However, the internet was still very limited in use. It was used by some government agencies, some big businesses, and a few large universities, but the general public still knew very little about the internet.

In 1989, researchers began working with something they called hypertext. Advances in hypertext led to the hypertext transfer protocol (HTTP) and hypertext markup language (HTML). HTML began as a way for researchers working at CERN (European Laboratory for Particle Physics) to allow researchers from various sites to organize, share, and search their documents by linking them together. This created the "web" structure that would eventually become the web as we know it. In 1994, the first World Wide Web conference was held at CERN in Geneva. Although large companies were hesitant in embracing this innovation, by 1996 it was difficult for a company to dismiss the necessity for a web presence. The first wave of web information had a distinctly static-and-push function. The second wave of the internet was distinctly more social and dynamic, allowing people to participate in more dynamic sharing, making, entertainment, and e-commerce. The proliferation of mobile devices made it possible for people to engage in these activities from anywhere, thus fueling the ubiquity of access and activity.

In the early 2000s, a handful of companies developed business models tailored to a web-based environment by utilizing the affordances of asynchronous communication, e-commerce, and user agency. These companies included Google's search engine, Amazon's department store, travel booking sites, and business review sites like Angie's List.

It was during this time that developers and programmers began to see the value of allowing users to provide their own web content. They began working on the websites, pages, and platforms that would eventually become known as social media.