{"id":4550,"date":"2014-03-12T14:27:33","date_gmt":"2014-03-12T12:27:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/oeb.global\/OEB_Newsportal\/?p=4550"},"modified":"2016-11-15T13:45:41","modified_gmt":"2016-11-15T11:45:41","slug":"world-wide-web-25","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/oeb.global\/oeb-insights\/world-wide-web-25\/","title":{"rendered":"The archaeology of the World Wide Web"},"content":{"rendered":"

March 12th<\/sup> 2014 marks the 25th<\/sup> birthday of the World Wide Web. It was on this day in 1989 that Tim Berners-Lee submitted his <\/b>original proposal<\/b><\/a> for a \u201cglobal hypertext system\u201d to CERN, a system he originally titled \u201cMesh\u201d. Over the next two years he developed the technologies it required: the first server, browser, HTML and HTTP. More importantly, he gave them away for free. Created by academics for academics, the World Wide Web is at heart an open learning resource, designed to enable the sharing of information between users and the creation of content.<\/b><\/p>\n

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\u201cThe original thing I wanted to do,\u201d Berners-Lee has said<\/a>, \u201cwas make it a collaborative medium, a place where we could all read and write\u201d.<\/p>\n

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The vast expansion of the medium over the last quarter-century has all but obscured the traces of these early days. For many, they are just a vague memory of shrill internet-safe colours, clunky graphics, animated GIFs, and pictures slowly loading line by line down the page. So to refresh your memory of the 90\u2019s net and celebrate its history, the ONLINE EDUCA BERLIN News Service has been delving into its dark undisturbed corners, uncovering some of its most ancient relics: dusting off the cobWebs.<\/p>\n

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\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0                    \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\"()\"\"()\"\u00a0\"()\"\u00a0\"()\"\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\r\n\u00a0\u00a0                    \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span># # # #\u00a0\r\n<\/span>\u00a0\u00a0                    \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 __<\/span><\/span>#<\/span>_<\/span>#<\/span>_<\/span>#<\/span>_<\/span>#<\/span>__<\/span>\r\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0                    \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 {_` ` ` ` `_}<\/span>\r\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0                    \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 _{_._._._._._}_<\/span>\r\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0                    \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 {_\u00a0 <\/span><\/span>H A P P Y<\/span>\u00a0 _}<\/span>\r\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0                    \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 _{_._._._._._._._}_<\/span>\r\n\u00a0                    \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 {_<\/span><\/span> B I R T H D A Y<\/span> _}<\/span>\r\n\u00a0\u00a0                    \u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>.---<\/span>{_._._._._._._._._._}<\/span>---.\r\n\u00a0                    \u00a0\u00a0 (\u00a0\u00a0 `\"\"\"\"\"\"\"\"\"\"\"\"\"\"\"\"\"\"\"\"\"`\u00a0\u00a0 )\u00a0\r\n\u00a0                       <\/span> `~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~`\r\n                            (One from the vaults)\r\n\r\n<\/span><\/pre>\n
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1990 \u2013 the first webpage <\/b>http:\/\/info.cern.ch\/<\/b><\/a><\/span><\/b><\/p>\n
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\"1\"<\/a>This is where it all began: Tim Berners-Lee\u2019s original webpage describing the W3 project. Thought lost for many years, it was lovingly restored at its original URL for the 20th<\/sup> birthday celebrations in 2009.<\/p>\n
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1993 \u2013 the first search engine http:\/\/www.aliweb.com\/<\/a><\/b><\/span><\/p>\n
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\"2\"<\/a>For a vintage searching experience, try ALIWEB. Still online, its screaming yellow background and excess of helpful links almost makes you wonder why they didn\u2019t think of Google sooner.<\/p>\n
\"aliweb_anim_button\"<\/a><\/p>\n
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1994 \u2013 GeoCities http:\/\/www.reocities.com\/neighborhoods\/<\/a>\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n
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\"gc_icon\"<\/a><\/b><\/span><\/p>\n
\"Geocities<\/a>GeoCities is the Atlantis of the Internet. One of the first sites to give people the ability to create their own webpage, it was once home to 38m users, and became renowned in later years more as a repository of sickening graphics, homespun GIF animations and all forms of early Internet bizarreness (including a sizeable community of foot-fetishists) than for the revolutionary social idea underpinning\u00a0it.<\/p>\n
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\"Geocities<\/p>\n
To great protest, this early endeavour in social networking was switched off by its owner, Yahoo, in 2009. Only a few fragments remain\u2026<\/p>\n
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1994<\/b> \u2013 the oldest online educational resources still available?\u00a0http:\/\/geosim.cs.vt.edu\/index.html<\/a><\/b><\/span><\/p>\n
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\"3\"<\/a>The World Wide Web is intrinsically designed for learning, and this could well be the oldest still-running e-learning site there is. Project GeoSim was, and indeed is<\/em>, a project by Virginia Tech, providing learning materials online \u2013 which, with a bit of luck, you can still download at your leisure. Allegedly last updated in 2006, it doesn\u2019t seem to have changed since the early 90\u2019s.<\/p>\n
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1<\/b>995<\/b> \u2013 the first ONLINE EDUCA BERLIN <\/b>https:\/\/oeb.global\/<\/b><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n
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\"4\"<\/a>ONLINE EDUCA, now in its 20th<\/sup> year, was there from the very beginning. \u00a0With help from the Internet Archive\u2019s Wayback Machine<\/a>, we\u2019ve unearthed this lovably prehistoric-looking logo from ONLINE EDUCA 1997. We’ve come a long way since then…<\/p>\n
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1995 \u2013 the Castle\u00a0http:\/\/www.va.com.au\/parallel\/x1\/gallery\/suzanne_treister\/hall1.html<\/a><\/b><\/span><\/p>\n
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\"5\"<\/a>Is this one of the first attempts to create an online virtual world? Or is it just an exercise in peculiarity? Who knows?<\/p>\n
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1996 \u2013 a world\u2019s fair for the information age\u00a0http:\/\/park.org\/<\/a><\/b><\/span><\/p>\n
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\"6\"<\/a>This year saw the start of a trend in Internet expositions \u2013 see a 1997 example here<\/a>. The 1996 Internet World Exposition has not, amazingly, proved as temporary as many real-world exhibition-spaces. It is still there, but vast and empty, filled with the remains of its rusting exhibits and the ghosts of the fish from the \u201c3D Aquarium\u201d it once boasted; and while the stallions have long bolted from the \u201cMuseum of the Horse\u201d, you can still check out the Letters of Support to see what governments of the time believed the Web was capable of.<\/p>\n
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1996 \u2013 cyber-beach\u00a0http:\/\/cyber-beach.com\/<\/a><\/b><\/span><\/p>\n
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\"7\"<\/a>Once a thriving community, now a museum, this sunny, sandy relic had it all \u2013 you could chat, read personals ads, find out about the best real-life beach bars, and send Pamela Anderson e-postcards, which were apparently all the rage in 1996. The cyber-beach post-office is still open if you want to send a vintage mail yourself.<\/p>\n
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1997 \u2013 the first social network<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n
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\"8\"<\/a>The ideas behind social networking had been around a long time. Dating websites had allowed users to create individual profiles, while other sites also let people list their contacts and find people they might know. Sixdegrees, however, was the first site that put these two concepts together.<\/p>\n
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1997 \u2013 the lost world re-found http:\/\/www.lost-world.com\/Lost_World02\/inGENe.html<\/a><\/b><\/span><\/p>\n
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\"9\"<\/a>Jurassic Park was always high-technology \u2013 with its genetic research, hacking, chaos theory and top-flight computer graphics. So it was only natural that when the sequel came out, InGen, the company responsible for the park, should get its own website. Here it is, now a living fossil in its own right.<\/p>\n
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1998 \u2013 a star is born<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n
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\"10\"<\/a>Google seems to have come into this world almost fully-formed. Well, there were more exclamation marks, and a bobbly, upbeat font \u2013 this is a happy-go-lucky young search engine trying to make its way in an already crowded world.<\/p>\n
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1999 \u2013 it\u2019s like money, but more illegal<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n
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\"11\"<\/a>The dotcom boom and bust were not a disaster for everybody. They were, however, for some of the first incarnations of online currency, known (by typical dotcom baby-names) as Flooz and beenz. Launching a new currency is forbidden in many places, so these two websites had to work round the law, facing stiff opposition from many governments. Despite endorsement from Whoopi Goldberg herself, Flooz never gained much appeal except within the money-laundering community, who made up around 20% of its users.<\/p>\n
Between them, Flooz and beenz managed to burn through around $150m. However, it must be said that the unwise excesses of the dotcom era did power huge development in Web and Internet technology \u2013 allowing us the capabilities we have today.<\/p>\n
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2006 \u2013 well done You!<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n
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\"12\"<\/a>If you have a job interview coming up, you may like to mention in your CV that you were TIME Magazine\u2019s Person of the Year 2006. Because you were. Everyone was \u2013 well, everyone involved in anonymously creating online content on wikis, YouTube, blogs and so on. For while the World Wide Web had long fulfilled half of Tim Berners-Lee\u2019s original intentions \u2013 being a place where content was shared and read \u2013 it was only with the advent of sites like these that people were able to become fully involved in content creation.<\/p>\n
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Do you have a favourite ancient website? Tell us below!<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
March 12th 2014 marks the 25th birthday of the World Wide Web. It was on this day in 1989 that Tim Berners-Lee submitted his original proposal for a \u201cglobal hypertext system\u201d to CERN, a system he originally titled \u201cMesh\u201d. Over the next two years he developed the technologies it required: the first server, browser, HTML […]<\/p>\n
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