Celebrating 25 Years Of The Internet: How it has Evolved & Developed

It’s been a quarter of a century since new users were enabled to browse the web and what a journey it’s been. Websites come and go whilst the virtual world continues to make exponential developments.

The influence of the Internet cannot be denied with news, opinions and information readily available in the 'clouds'. There are 1.71 billion active Facebook users and over 1 billion websites.

How did the Internet Begin?

When and how did the Internet begin? This is where it all gets complex, it’s not as simple as pinpointing a specific date. There are a bundle of significant periods that affected the world for good. The invention of the Internet came in the late 1960s when it was first connected and many users had access to e-mails, hypertext browsing and other systems. But Sir Tim Berners-Lee made it his mission in 1980 to evolve this idea of sharing information and provide a way for CERN to use this idea. This quickly progressed and by 1990 the first CERN website was created. On August 6^th 1991 the first website outside of CERN was launched and placed on the world wide web, this project continued to make waves and by August 23^rd it went public. Envisioning the web at that time just seems unthinkable as we now boast fibre optic connections and we get frustrated if we have to click a tab more than once because it won’t load. The aforementioned highlights display the hard work that went into providing the public with the Internet, something that is often taken for granted. There are many other rumours and stipulations with the invention of the web, with some making a case for Tesla. The legendary Nikola Tesla born in 1856 created a number of ways to communicate worldwide and one of his ideas matched that of the Internet only to be shut down by investors.

Development Of The Internet

The first website uploaded onto the world wide web in 1989 looks as it does above and can still be accessed to this very day, click our link to take a look at the existing web page.

Most computers were operating with Ask Jeeves as their search engine. It was founded in 1996 and was the go-to place for all your answers although it was a lot harder to find the information you needed back then. As we know, Google soon took over and are now recognised as the most used website in the world. They were also established in 1996 but their domain looked rather different when it began. How times have changed, the loquacity of some individuals can be halted on the spot with little chance to exaggerate stories or magic information. We can now find out exact dates, information and facts within a few presses of our phones. This doesn’t seem to be an era that caters kindly for serial falsifiers.

Who remembers Piczo? This domain hosted numerous webpages and enabled teenagers to blog with pictures and other customised effects online. It was the fifth most used website around back in 2006. Many of the names went something like ‘Jessybbzxoxo.piczo.com’ and were covered in glittery designs that were complete eyesores. But the concept was fantastic and it’s still something we see today but carried out in more of a sophisticated and niche way with ways to create your own social media, photography pages and more. In fact, Piczo now has their own photography website today.

A well-known domain that has recently announced the sunset of an era is Friends Reunited, they will be closing and have come up with ways to enable old users to retrieve their pictures. Friends Reunited was the ultimate method for people to use the Internet to its full capabilities; people across the globe could get in touch with old friends. This completely changed the dynamics of the era but in today’s capacity there’s no place for this type of website. You can pretty much find an old friend with a search on Facebook or you probably already comment on their pictures?

MSN is one nostalgic website feature that many will miss, just the different sounds of this program are enough to cast your mind back to a simpler time. This innovative design made a user-friendly interface that allowed instant messaging for everybody. It was predominantly used by the younger generation as teenagers took to their computer screen to communicate after school.

Everybody had that one friend called Tom, no seriously, everybody on MySpace did! This is another one that many teenagers would use, MySpace. It soon became the host of many unsigned bands and artists but kids worldwide used this service to express their individuality. People would design their background, insert different text or questionnaires and even put their favourite soundtrack on there. Who remembers the drama that coincided with the feature of picking your top friends? That was a school pupils biggest worry back in the early 2000’s.

There are many other websites that you may remember and most of them still exist in some form. Find out how the websites used to look and how they compare to today.

How the Internet has Changed

There have been momentous advances since August 1991 and if you take a look back at some of the websites dominating the Internet in 2006 compared to now you will gage how fast we are moving forward. Stay in touch with the latest creations by our using Amazon promo codes, Currys discount codes and Samsung coupons. You’ll be able to get your hands on emerging tablets, laptops and mobile phones. There are huge developments being perpetrated as we speak, where will we be in the next ten years? Express your opinion and tag us on Twitter @MFVoucherCodes.

 By Daniel Treasure, 23rd August 2016