Ten internet firsts

Posted by Jake in E-commerce, Email, Internet, Random | 0 comments

Yeesh. Been a bit since my last blog… but it’s been a stupidly busy and eventful week: lots of events, meetings, (supposedly) academic work, documenting, writing, research and playing on the internet, plus some personal stuff to deal with. But enough excuses. I figured a few random bits and pieces might make an interesting read, so here are a handful of internet firsts.

1. The first website

The first website was info.cern.ch and was about the WWW project. Unfortunately, the first associated web page doesn’t anymore, but a copy can be found on W3C’s site.

2. The first domain name

The first-ever domain name was registered on 15th March 1985, by (now long-gone) computer manufacturer, Symbolics. Unsurprisingly, the name they chose was “symbolic.com”.

3. The first blog

A web-based diary called Justin’s Links from the Underground emerged during 1994. It offered an early guided tour of the Web, but became increasingly personal over time – The New York Times Magazine suggests this to be the first example of personal blogging. Of course, the term “blog” itself wouldn’t be introduced until 1999, when it emerged as a shortened version of “weblog”, which was coined in 1997.

4. The first search engine

Long before Google, people were toying with the concepts of search engines. Arguably, one of the first public ones (that were text-based and indexed the web) was WebCrawler, which was set up in 1994.

5. The first email

The first email which used the standard “@” symbol was sent in 1971. Emails had existed before this, but could only be sent within a fixed network. It’s impressive that back in 1971, the internet didn’t even exist. (Although ARPANET did).

6. The first spam email

The first documented spam message was sent out to just under 400 recipients via ARPANET in 1978. The message was an advert about a new model of DEC computers and even earned the sender, Gary Thuerk, a spot in the Guinnes Book of World Records for being the world’s first spammer.

7. The first e-commerce site

The online retailer NetMarket claims to have had the first secure retail transaction on the Web. (Amazon and eBay, screw you guys!) In August 1994, Ten Summoner’s Tales was sold. (I wish it had been something more exciting than a bloody album by Sting, though). However, the Internet Shopping Network contests this, claiming to have sold something a month earlier.

8. The first item sold on eBay

Back in 1995, when eBay was known as AuctionWeb. The first purchase sold was a broken laser pointer. (Still, much better than a Sting album).

9. The first internet-ready mobile

The first mobile phone that was able to connect to the internet was the Nokia 9000 Communicator, back in 1996. It didn’t take off though, as operator charges were so high. Consequently, the first mainstream phone with internet connectivity is generally noted to be the 1999 Japanese DoCoMo’s i-Mode.

10. The first online bank

The first financial institution to offer internet banking to all of their customers for free was Stanford Federal Credit Union, way back in 1994.

[Image credit goes to horizontal.integration]