History Notes Special: World Wide Web Turns 30

This week marks the 30th anniversary of the World Wide Web.

“Cyberspace. A consensual hallucination experienced daily by billions of legitimate operators, in every nation, by children being taught mathematical concepts… A graphic representation of data abstracted from banks of every computer in the human system. Unthinkable complexity. Lines of light ranged in the nonspace of the mind, clusters and constellations of data. Like city lights, receding…” 
― William Gibson, Neuromancer

The Cape Charles Mirror, of course, has embraced this decentralized, consensual hallucination. Our first article was published to the web on June 26, 2015.

Below are some of the events that helped shape the interweb:

In 2001 @Wikipedia was launched.

In 2002, the @creativecommons license was introduced to promote the innovative reuse of all types of intellectual works, unlock the power of sharing, and transform others’ work.

In 2003, @ArtistShare launched as the Internet’s first “crowdfunding” platform spawning entire new industry.

In 2003, W3C announced its Patent Policy.

In 2003, http://4chan.org  was born, proving even old-fashioned UI and UX can still support decades of discussion.

In 2003, @WordPress was created to democratize publishing on the open web.

In 2004, ‘The @facebook‘ was created to help students at @Harvard connect.

In 2004, a year after receiving the Nobel Peace Prize, laureate Shirin Ebadi began using the web as a powerful tool to fight dictators. She has been mobilizing for human rights online ever since.

In 2004 @Flickr launched with all the hope, enthusiasm & optimism that had been present since the dawn of the web.

In 2005, I registered http://Reddit.com  from a computer in Alderman Library at @UVA & it would change my life. -Alexis Ohanian

In 2005 the word #cyberbullying. is invented.

In 2005, over 1 billion people were using the Internet worldwide.

In 2006, Twitter began its initial setup.

In 2006 Time chose YOU (as in you, the global connected hivemind) as Person of the Year. The big bullet point was Google buying YouTube for $1.65 billion, which seemed shockingly high then and seems shockingly low now.

In 2007, #Estonia became one of the world’s first countries to be hit with a cyber attack.

In 2007, reCAPTCHA was launched to help digitize millions of books by having people type CAPTCHAs of words that computers couldn’t decipher. More than a billion people contributed to making physical books available online.

In June, 2007, Gordon Brown is the first UK Prime Minister to use e-mail for daily government business when he enters No10 Downing Street.

In 2012, ISPs and big content providers turned on #IPv6, the next generation #Internet address standard. Most people didn’t notice, but It was a milestone and will enable many future #Web anniversaries

In 2012, Tardar Sauce the Grumpy Cat was top (possibly first) internet meme star.

Below is a great video that describes the birth and current status of the web, 30th Anniversary of the Web: Understanding its Core Values – Open Your Web #1 byMickaël Rémond