It has been 25 years today since the World Wide Web was born. I still remember locking myself away in my bedroom 12-13 years ago and designing my first ever wrestling fan website using Geocities and Angelfire.
The web and web development has changed a lot since then and become an integrated part of everyday life.
Web developers have really innovated and driven the web since it’s inception. The possibilities of developing a website from a vision in your mind is now more possible than ever.
Web development companies have come a long way since the start of the web, with more and more people taking an interest in website development and offering programming services – Websites are now more affordable than ever – A true testament to how the web has evolved on its 25th Birthday.
Here’s a few of the key milestones over the last 25 years:
1989 – AOL launches messenger chat with the timeless greeting “you’ve got mail” which led to a film of the same name.
1991 – The first ever live webcam stream shows a coffee pot so that researchers could see when a fresh pot of coffee had been made!
1994 – One of the first online purchases takes place via a Pizza Hut website in which a sale for a pepperoni with mushrooms and extra cheese is purchased!
1995 – Amazon, craigslist and match.com all debut online
1996 – Hotmail email service launches
1997 – Netflix and Godaddy launch, Google.com becomes registered as a domain name
1998 – AOL sends every home on the planet a CD-ROM for their service taking their member total to over 16million
1999- Napster launches and is swiftly banned by many colleges before eventually being shut down after a well-publicised legal battle.
2000 – The dot-com bust happens as investors lose hundreds of millions if not billions of dollars.
2001 – Wikipedia launches
2003 – Apple launch itunes with 200,00 songs. Myspace.com is launched along with WordPress, Skype and Linkedin
2004 – facebook launched along with Mozilla firefox.
2005 – YouTube is launched on Valentines day.
2006 – Google buys YouTube, Twitter launches.
2007 – First iPhone launched
2008 – Groupon launches along with the Apple app store. HTML5 introduced to the web.
2009 – Viral videos launch everyday people into internet superstars
2010 – Pintrest and Instagram launch
2011 – Google+ launches, Microsoft buys Skype
2012 – Facebook tops 1 billion users, Ecommerce sales top $1 trillion worldwide.
2013 – Apple app store downloads top 40 billion!
2014 – Facebook buys whatsapp for $19billion and the WWW turns 25