Technology fascinates me…and I love gadgets that come along with it!
Ipads, iphones, tablets, phablets and so on have become such a part of life, which means we can now have instant access to the web.
I am a child of the 70s so was just finishing school as computers became more available….I remember our first “laptop”…it was like a large box and was quite heavy!
I also remember when we first got internet at work….it was like having a special privileges if you were allowed to link into the phone line and dial up!
How quickly we forget…I can’t even remember what I first used the World Wide Web for….
So I really enjoyed reading this book…100 Ideas that Changed the Web by Jim Boulton is not only about ideas that changed the web, but also those that led to its very creation!
It also demonstrates just how far technology has come in such a relatively short period of time!
The first 20 ideas on the list examine “the precursors, those ideas that led to the creation of the web”.
This includes the PC, the modem and of course, the internet!
One thing I will never forget is the sound of a modem connecting…and the fact that it seemed to take forever!
Ideas 54 – 73 address “the birth of ecommerce”….when brands started to use the web and the first peer to peer network was developed!
With ideas 74-98, the web came of age….it became “dynamic, social and crucially, mobile”!
And the invention of the iPhone in 2007 was when the web finally arrived on our mobiles!
The last two ideas 99 and 100, look at what may lie ahead….the sky is the limit, or should I say, there is no limit!
Here are some interesting facts that I bet you didn’t know….
- The first webpage to be launched was on 6th August 1991 by Tim Berners-Lee…this webpage was the beginning of the internet being able to be used by anyone!
- In 1941, a Hollywood actress invented the technology that underpins what we now know as Wifi!
- The first use of a webcam was to remotely check if all the coffee had gone from coffee pot….
- Wikipedia originally was called WikiWikiWeb…after the Wiki Wiki shuttle bus at Honolulu airport….Wiki means “hurry”!
- Facebook was launched in Feb 2004…in 2005 it was available to every college student in the US….in Sept 2006, it was open to everyone in the world…as long as you were thirteen and over!
- In 1992, there were 50 websites in the world….five years later, there were a million…all because of the creation of the web browser!
I was curious about where and how blogging happened…and I found it at idea number 49!
The first beginnings of the “blog” started in 1997 by Jorn Barger…he began to publish daily entries on his website, and started to call it a web log.
In 1999, Peter Merholz wrote “we blog” as a joke on his website….and the term stuck!
This book makes me realise that everything on the list has come from an idea….without these ideas, and the people who made them real, things would have been very different!
And it makes you wonder what will be developed in the next twenty years!
So iyou love technology, or are curious as to how commonplace things such as emoticons and web chat came into life, get your hands on this book!
Sarah Doxey Cox
I am always so fascinated by where things come from, especially when it comes to technology! I may just have to get the book. Thanks for the review. xx