The internet is the newest and youngest medium, having been around in its current
form for just about 20 years.
The very first interconnected computer network
was developed as a joint project between the US military and several research
organisations, and went live in 1969. New advances came slowly at first: network
email was invented in 1971 (though the system was very slow and primitive),
international connections were established in 1973, the term “internet” was first
used in 1974 and the first real online protocols were introduced in the 1980s.
Everything accelerated in the early 1990s as Tim Berners-Lee, acknowledged as
the creator of the internet as we know it today, built on his earlier revolutionary
work and released the URL protocol, web browser software and the World Wide
Web to the public. By 1993, businesses started taking an interest in the internet.
The debate raged about whether they were permitted to use the internet for
commercial purposes, since it had been established as a strictly educational and
Introduction to internet marketing
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CHAPTER 1
non-commercial arena. Eventually, however, the businesses won out and the last
of these restrictions were dissolved in 1995.
Figure 1: The first email ever was sent between these two computers.
(Source: history-computer.com)
Early internet giants like Yahoo and Amazon launched their online platforms in
the mid-1990s amid a wave of new search portals, including Alta Vista, Excite
and Infoseek. Google launched in 1998, taking search to a new level of accuracy
and convenience. Other commercial websites, like the auction site eBay, began to
dominate the web, solidifying the interactive and global commercial potential of
the internet.
In 2004, the concept of “web 2.0” – the interactive, commercial, cooperative and
user-centric web – exploded into public consciousness. Its main characteristics
were the rise of social networking, the invention of tools that made creating
and customising personal pages increasingly simple, and the big push by online
marketers to make their advertising and products more accessible and desirable
to online markets. Commercial strategies have become more prevalent and
innovative since then. Recent years have seen a growth in web consciousness as
users become more adept at filtering and steering online content.
In December 1995, the internet had 16 million users, which equated to about
0.4% of the world’s total population. It surpassed 100 million users in early 1998
and continued to grow exponentially since then. The 1 billionth user joined in
December 2005. According to Internet World Stats, there were 2 billion users
online by June 2010 – that’s 30% of the world’s population.