The Internet at

By Janice Hopkin26/03/2010

What is the Internet?The internet is a global system of interconnectednetworks, a network ofnetworks, which use theTCP/IP Suite to connect.

This map is a graphical representation of computers connectedto the internet

When did it begin? The internet was born in

the United States. It began in the 1960’s as a US government funded project to build a robust distributed network.

Prior to this networking was limited to communications between stations on the same network.

Who were the creators?• J.C.R. Licklider of MIT, first

proposed a global network of computers in 1962 in a memorandum discussing his concept for an ‘Intergalactic Computer Network’. In late 1962 he moved to the Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to head the work to develop it.

• Another important contributor was Leonard Kleinrock who developed the theory of packet switching which was to become crucial to the development of the internet

Contributors Continued .. The project that was to lead to the creation of the world’s

first packet switched network was named ARPANET a name derived from the funding agency Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA). This project was headed by Lawrence Roberts

The Infant InternetIMP’s (Interface Message Processors) which were around the size of a large refrigerator were the first devices used in the creation of the network. These IMP’s were placed between the supercomputers and the phone lines that connected the network. Each computer on the APRANET had to have it’s own IMP and each device was connected to dedicated phone lines

Kleinrock with the first IMP

First Words ..

On October 19th 1969 at 10.30pm Charley Kline a student programmer attempted the first transmission from a computer at the University of California to a computer at the Stanford Research institute.

Unlike the first ever Telegraph Message sent by Samuel Morse the very dramatic ‘What hath God wrought?” The internet's first utterance was to be

LOGIN

And so the attempt was made ……..

L

O

Crash!!!

From strength to strength

And thus it was to be that the first words ever uttered across the internet were LO !

This less than auspicious start did not deter the creators indeed that very same

evening a full LOGIN was transmitted across the network.

Success!

Growth of the network

Year IMP’s Connected1970 13

1971 19

1972 29

1973 40

1974 46

1975 57

By November that year the first permanent APRANET link was created and by December there were 4 nodes connected to the network

Email

•Twelve years after Charley Kline's first message on the Arpanet, as it was then known, there were still only 213 computers on the network; but 14 years after that, 16 million people were online, and email was beginning to change the world

Diversification

•the first really usable web browser NCA Mosaic wasn't launched until 1993, but by 1995 we had Amazon, by 1998 Google, and by 2001, Wikipedia, at which point there were 513 million people online. Today the figure is more like 1.7 billion.

APRANET Retired

•The term ARPANET was retired in 1990 but a spin-off MILNET a military network was created in the 1980’s. APRANET provided the backbone for the packet switched network that is today's internet.

The Internet Today

The internet today has become as much a part of many peoples every day life as television and telephones. It has arguably changed the way in which we interact socially, transact business and transfer knowledge. As it continues to grow so do new ways of communicating and exchanging knowledge.

Who are today's internet users?

Where is usage the greatest?

What are the most popular sites?2009 sites by unique visitors• Google Sites: 844 million• Microsoft Sites: 691 million• Yahoo! Sites: 581 million• Facebook: 340 million• Wikimedia Foundation sites: 303 million• AOL: 280 million• eBay: 233 million• CBS Interactive: 186 million• Amazon: 183 million• Ask Network: 174 million

Source: comScore

Current TrendsGoogle is the world’s most popular search

engine and a look at their Zeitgeist page allows us an interesting look at what the world is searching for :

http://www.google.com/insights/search/#cmpt=q

Where NextA survey by the Pew Internet Research Centre asked this question

in its Future of the Internet IV Survey some of the questions that were posed were:

“Will Google make us stupid”“Will reading, writing and the rending of knowledge be improved

by the internet”“Will anonymous online activity be challenges and will there be a

power struggle over control of the internet.

The respondents answers can be found at http://www.elon.edu/docs/e-web/predictions/2010survey.pdf

Where do you think the internet will go in the next 40 years??