Action Today Sunday Supplement – Happy 50th Birthday
Hi there,
Trevor here, I hope you’re well.
Welcome to my Action Today Sunday Supplement.
Happy 50th birthday.
No – not me. Although it would be nice to go back to being 50 again.
No, it’s happy 50th birthday to – The Internet.
That’s right, believe it or not, the Internet is 50 years old this week.
In the middle of 1969, the US Government decided that they needed to connect a dozen or so University computer systems together to share information and speed up research by sharing progress made with each other.
So they commissioned the Information Processing Techniques Office headed up be J.C.R. Licklider to undertake the job.
Shortly after that under the leadership of his successor, Robert Taylor, the first network of connected computers was formed. They named this first network of computers – ARPAnet.
In September of that year the University of California in Los Angeles sent a single word to a computer at Stamford Research Institute.
That word was LOGIN, but they only managed to send LO before the system crashed.
(Those of us who started back in the early days of marketing online were very familiar with the system crashing before you managed to get connected).
Then in the early 1970’s work by Vint Cerf and Robert Khan led to the internet that we are familiar with today. As a result Vint Cerf is generally recognised as the father of the Internet although there were clearly many people involved in aspects of its development.
Now, the Internet that I’m describing here should not be confused with the World Wide Web. The World Wide Web is the mechanism that enables web pages, videos etc to be viewed on our computers and sits on top of the Internet.
The World Wide Web didn’t arrive until 1989/1990 when Tim Berners-Lee developed the first web server and the first web browser.
Today, just 50 years later, there are 4.4 billion of us using the Internet on a daily basis creating 2.5 exabytes (that’s a lot) of data every single day.
Those initial 2 nodes at Los Angeles and Stamford have become millions of nodes connecting huge data centres which in turn connect all of our households, offices and places of work to the Internet.
Who would have thought back in 1969 that we would have people with no technical experience earning full-time incomes online today.
As a computer technician sending data updates to customers down the line back in the early 1980’s, I had no clue that I would be marketing on the Internet today.
We are very privileged to live in a time when there is so much opportunity all around us.
All we have to do is grab this opportunity with both hands and use it.
As always if you have any questions or comments feel free to get in touch at any time.
Have a GREAT Sunday,
Until next time,
Kindest Regards,
Trevor
