The internet has not been around for very long, but ever since the technology boom in the late 90’s, a DSL or wireless line has become a household fixture. It took five years for the internet to reach 50 million users, compared to the radio’s 35 years and TV’s 13 years, which proves this is more than a passing phenomenon. J.C.R. Licklider concocted the idea of a computer when he invisioned a global file sharing system while he was working at DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Project Agency, an advanced research center that created the Internet while preoccupied with other projects), so todays internet fits his dream almost to a T. The rise of the Internet was perpetrated by the technology boom in the late 90s, and as the demand has grown, the internet is readily changing to meet those needs. With more and more blogs (both personal and corporate) popping up all over the web, blogs have to become not only accessible but overal easy to use.
One of the main attractions of the Internet was of course, email. The first documented email was in 1971 by Ray Tomlinson and it simply read, ‘Testing 1,2,3′ and was addressed to himself. He then issued addresses to everyone at ARPANET (a branch of DARPA) and the email was born, but it had many falliabilities. Originally email was just a listing of messages that you could open, but only in the order that you recieved them, and there was no deleting. From then on the ability to: delete, recieve/send, forward, save, file your emails made email what it is today. This was all done in the time span from 1972-1972 and from that year we have (essentially) the same email programming we have today.
After email was conquered, we moved on to search engines, blogs and websites where you could share information with others. The search engines we know and love today are basically online libraries, where with a click of your mouse you are scanning through millions of books. Instead of leafing through books in the library, you simply type in key words, text or a subject of study into a search engine like Google or Yahoo and you have at least a million responses.
The rise of the internet was unprecendented, and while we tend to think that everyone in the world has access to the internet; there is still a vast majority of the globe that is not ‘connected.’ Factors like: location, age, class even gender all effect the internet, and as it continues to grow in future years maybe the entire world can be part of the internet boom. But as it develops, the cliche ‘the harder you rise, the faster you fall,’ is no doubt running through some individuals minds. With sites like Wikipedia, where anyone has access to change information that others may count on for reports, thesis papers, even evidence; we have to question how reliable the internet truly is.
But when in only several years the internet has made such an immense impact, it’s only going to get bigger.
December 17, 2007 at 6:33 pm
Actually, the Internet was working better for computer professionals PRIOR to the development of the world wide web. Although the web has enabled an unprecedented growth in the usage of the Internet, it has also fueled the growth of viruses, malware and spyware. This is primarily due to the ability of non-computer professionals to use the internet and not really understand what it is or its capabilities to share data. When the Internet was simply comprised of shared data sites available through FTP and simply email, connections were made with hundredths of the bandwidth of today, and there was little or now slowdowns from busy sites. As an early email user (Circa 1981), it is a great tool, but like any tool, sometimes too much for the job. It’s time to reign in and refine our usage of the everyday tools in order to stop the overkill that is placed on the ‘Net from the various malicious users which comes about from “security holes”.
Maybe, by fixing our current situation, we can reassess our game planning going forward.