Module 1 – Lesson 2 – Reading 2: A Brief History of the Internet

Many think that social media started with the invention of Facebook in 2004, but social interactions
have taken place on the Internet from the earliest days. This article gives an overview of the
predecessors of social media.

Reflection pointer: As you read this history, think of what has changed and what has stayed the same
when it comes to online interaction.

1960s: ARPANET The evolution of the Internet begins with a computer network experiment run by the
U.S. Department of Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA). Its goal: to develop a
communication system with no obvious central command and control point, in order to re‐establish
contact in the event of a (nuclear) attack on any one point. ARPANET was also meant to improve and
increase computer research productivity through academic resource sharing. During the 1960s, there
were ARPA‐funded groups at various research centers in the United States, including MIT, UCLA, and
the Rand Corporation.

1970s: Early dissemination In mid‐1973, the network extended across the Atlantic, linking computers
in Norway and Great Britain. One of the surprising developments of the ARPANET was the great
popularity of email among the ARPA‐researchers. Email could also be used to send messages to a group
address. A survey in 1973 revealed that three‐quarter of all the traffic on the Net was electronic mail,
some of which was not related to computing at all. Communities also began to develop. The first large
community was SF‐LOVERS, an email list devoted to public discussions about science fiction.

1970s: more networking platforms By the mid‐1970s, computer networks began to spring up
wherever funding could be found. They were intended for, and largely restricted to, closed
communities of scholars – starting with computer scientists and spreading to researchers in other
fields. The main objective of these early communities was professional information and experience
exchange. The networks were also used to create email lists organized around interests not related to
academic research or professional topics.

1980s: Usenet and the emergence of virtual communities Usenet was initiated in 1979 by graduate
students from Duke University and the University of North Carolina. The system was available to
everyone who had access to the UNIX operating system. One of the first communities of interest that
developed on Usenet was the newsgroup NET.chess about computer chess. ARPANET and Usenet were
connected in 1981, attracting a wave of new users that spurred the development of newsgroups.
Usenet became a large collection of communities of interest consisting of huge knowledge reservoirs.
Mailing lists also had a wide range of discussions, but were available to a much smaller sized group.
Usenet drew its strength from being a global, peer‐to‐peer network that is free from commercial
exploitation.

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1980s: Bulletin Board Systems Bulletin board systems were developed by computer hobbyists who
interconnected their personal computers via telephone lines using a modem. During the 1980s, the
prices for modems dropped. As commercial online service providers entered the market, more people
gained access to conferencing systems as Usenet and bulletin board systems and were able to
communicate and interact online with others distant in space and time, but sharing a common interest.
The result was the emergence of a wide variety of communities devoted to topics ranging from religion
to sex, health care to Star Trek.

1980s and 1990s: Chat In 1988, a programmer at the University of Oulu, Finland, wrote the first version
of Internet Relay Chat (IRC), a multi‐user, synchronous communications tool designed to be facilitated
by the Internet. Another kind of virtual community; the multi‐user dungeon, dimension or domain
(MUD), was developed in the late 1970s to allow people to play fantasy computer games with other
people instead of against computers. As the computing power and network bandwidth increased, text‐
based MUDs were upgraded to graphical worlds.

1990s: The World Wide Web The various early systems grew together into one system with many
parts: the Internet. Large‐scale access to the Internet was greatly enhanced by the development of the
World Wide Web by Tim Berners‐Lee at the Geneva‐based European Organization for Nuclear
Research (CERN) in 1990‐1991. This user‐friendly interface onto the Internet caught on in 1993, when
a freely available Web browser (Mosaic, later Netscape Navigator) started the web revolution. Internet
usage in business and private context exploded, as did the number and variety of virtual communities.
Online commerce, including business‐to‐business, business‐to‐consumer, and consumer‐to‐consumer
websites also emerged.

1990s: Businesses discover the internet With the increasing popularity of the Internet, companies
started to create virtual communities around specific products, brands, and consumption activities.
Portals were created that function as gateways to the Internet by organizing information into sections
that contain links to relevant web pages (e.g., Yahoo, MSN, iVillage). These portals offered (and some
still do) free services such as message boards, chat rooms, transaction facilities, e‐mail accounts, and
space to build personal web pages. In exchange, users provide personal information that is exploited
for commercial purposes and were exposed to advertising. Dot‐com companies proliferated in the late
1990s. The business model of these companies relied on network effects; they gave their product away
in the hope that they could later charge for it. However, in late 2000 and through 2001, the Internet
bubble burst. A few established dot‐com companies survived the turmoil, but most went bankrupt
without ever having made a profit.

2000s: Web 2.0 Echoing the early years of the development of the Internet, a large portion of online
activities became centered on social interactions and user‐generated content. This has included blogs,

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forums, dating websites, social media websites such as MySpace and later Facebook – which, like
earlier services, got its start on college campuses. Crowdsourcing became a popular way to fund
projects and activities, as well as to involve consumers in activities such as new product development.

2010s: The mobile revolution As smartphones and internet connectivity became widespread, new
services and applications such as Twitter, Instagram and Snapchat were developed to take advantage
of the rapidly changing patterns of internet and social media use.

Key Moments in the Development of the Internet

1969 ARPANET is launched

1972 The first email is sent and mailing lists are created

1976‐1977 Creation of EIES scientific virtual community

1978‐1981 Development of the first Usenet newsgroups, BBSs, and MUDs

1980‐1981 Development of CSNET and BITNET (scientific communities)

Introduction of commercial online service providers (e.g., CompuServe)

1980‐1985
the Source, and AOL)

1988 Development of Internet Relay Chat

1990‐1991 Development of World Wide Web

Introduction of Netscape;
1994‐1995
Introduction of communities of transaction (e.g., Amazon.com)

1998‐1999 Portals add community features (e.g., Yahoo and MSN)

2000‐2001 The Internet bubble bursts

2002‐2004 Social networking websites begin to emerge

2007 Launch of the iPhone, smartphone usage quickly becomes widespread

2014 Mobile usage exceeds desktop usage in the United States

Sources

De Valck, K. (2005). Virtual Communities of Consumption: Networks of Consumer Knowledge and

Companionship. Rotterdam, The Netherlands, ERIM PhD Series: Research in Management.

Hauben, M., Hauben, R. (1999). On the History and Impact of Usenet and the Internet. Los Alamitos,
CA, IEEE Computer Society Press.

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Gauntlett, D., Ed. (2000). Web.Studies; Rewiring Media Studies for the Digital Age. London, Arnold.

Leiner, B.M., Cerf, V.G., Clark, D.D., Kahn, R.E., Kleinrock, L., Lynch, D.C., Postel, J., Roberts, L.G., Wolff,
S. (2000). A Brief History of the Internet, Reston, VA, Internet Society. Available online:
http://www.isoc.org/internet/history/brief.shtml

Naughton, J. (1999). A Brief History of the Future. The Origins of the Internet. London, Weidenfeld &
Nicolson.

Rheingold, H. (1993). The Virtual Community: Homesteading on the Electronic Frontier. New York, NJ,
HarperCollins.

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