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The History of the Internet

Web education company Grovo has used their Facebook timeline to showcase the history of the internet. Very cool!

Here are some of my favorites…

  • 1536 - First known instance of the @ symbol used in a letter by a Florentine merchant. Who knew?
  • 1963 - The first computer mouse is invented by Douglas Engelbart. I also didn't realize the mouse was that old.
  • 1972 - Email is invented.
  • 1978 - The first spam email is sent. That didn't take long. Bummer.
  • 1989 - Peapod launches the first online grocery store. I'm shocked that Peapod is this old.
  • 1997 - Google is born. I thought Google was older than that.
  • 2003 - MySpace, WordPress and LinkedIn launch. Hell of a year!
  • 2004 - Gmail launches. Facebook is released. Again, though these were older.
  • Also 2004 - Mozilla releases Firefox web browser. So begins the end of the Internet Explorer's rein of glory tyranny.
  • 2005 - YouTube launches. Is it really that young?
  • 2006 - Jack Dorsey creates Twitter. That means Twitter is 7 years old. Wow.

If there’s one takeaway for me, it’s that internet time moves differently than real world time. I’m amazed at how recently many of the services I know and love were created.