Posted on Monday, March 31st, 2014 by Will Hagle
The Story Of The Web offers an interactive history of the Internet, covering its many evolutions.
The story of the web is an interesting one that’s not often told in history books. Although the Internet is a tool commonly used in nearly all aspects of modern life, the technology has a long history of evolution that was made possible by several different innovators. Thestoryoftheweb.org.uk was created in order to give people a better understanding of how that incredible evolution took place. The site was designed in an interactive manner, allowing visitors to play through the visual history or scroll through to discover information on their own. The story begins in 1985, when the Internet was the subject of technologist and academic debate. The story highlights Tim Berner-Lee’s 1989 paper “Information management: A proposal,” which was submitted to the author’s boss at CERN and essentially laid out the idea for what would ultimately become the start of the web.
The story continues in a chronological manner, highlighting the new innovations that drastically changed the way users, companies and other influencers changed the face of the web. Along the way, visitors of the site can interact with various items hosted on the site, such as a YouTube video demonstrating “the biggest launch in software history,” or Windows 95. As you scroll, the site continues to highlight the most important points in Internet history, covering the invention of social networks, the issue of illegal downloading and copyright infringement, as well as Internet-specific phenomena such as Lulz cats and memes. At this point, the influence of the Internet on larger society is undeniable, and Nominet’s The Story of the Web is one of the few sites that offers individuals a clear, free-to-browse and learn history of the world’s most powerful tool.