This Was Internet's 1st Website 29 Years Ago & 7 Ways In How The World Wide Web Has Changed

It¡¯s time to day say Happy Birthday to the World Wide Web! Well, not exactly, seeing as the Internet¡¯s birthday was on August 6 1991. But at any rate, it¡¯s the 29th anniversary of the day the Web was first conceptualised.

Way back on March 12, 1989, Tim Berners-Lee submitted an official proposal to the management at CERN (the European Organization for Nuclear Research) for a new information system called ¡®Mesh¡¯. In it, he talked about a more elaborate data management system than what existed at the time, with links embedded into text. ¡°Imagine, then, the references in this document all being associated with the network address of the thing to which they referred, so that while reading this document you could skip to them with a click of the mouse,¡± he had said at the time.

At the time, his superiors were not interested, though not particularly enthusiastic in retrospect.

¡°Vague, but exciting,¡± a reviewer wrote on the cover of the document

Originally,the World Wide Web was designed as a conceived as a method to easily disseminate information between scientists and universities across the world. And though that was achieved, the Internet also went on to become so much more than anyone ever imagined.

In fact, CERN¡¯s own website was the first one in the world to go online. This page in particular walked a newcomer through what exactly the World Wide Web stood for, how it could be used, as well as documentation, credits, and technical data. Of course, that¡¯s a modern day version of what the website actually was. Instead the page back in the day, captured beautifully here by the restoration project, would have looked more like this...

That website, and technically the entirety of the Internet at the time, was stored on Berners-Lee¡¯s NeXT computer in his CERN office. That server is still located at CERN, for posterity.

In the almost 30 years since, we¡¯ve seen some major changes happen to the Internet, some good and some bad.

1. E-Commerce is booming

There was once a time when the grocery store and the mall was all we had. But thanks to the inception of e-commerce, you can now shop for more than just everyday items online. You can buy a car, trade on the stock market, book vacation tickets, all without ever having to step into a store or bank.

2. News for everyone

Where once upon a time you¡¯d have to grab the morning paper or tune into the news on the radio, now you can access it anytime, anywhere. You can get the day¡¯s headlines, or updated match scores from your smartphone while stuck in traffic. And while that¡¯s been great for the public¡¯s awareness of current events, it¡¯s also unfortunately lowered the bar for news. That¡¯s why these days you have to be alert to weed out the ¡°fake news¡± amidst real facts, if you want an accurate picture of what¡¯s going on.

3. ¡°Even my grandfather is on social media¡±

Social media has become an irreplaceable part of our lives, no matter what the age. You can keep in touch with old friends and faraway relatives without ever leaving your chair, and without even picking up the phone. And all because some guy wanted to physicists to be able to read each others¡¯ work easily.

4. The screen got smaller

With the advent of video streaming, the world got a lot smaller. Even when the Internet first began taking off, your access to the outside world would have been limited. Today, you can watch a Japanese TV show, or a Hollywood movie, or French makeup blogger whenever you want. A decade ago, you¡¯d have had to download a movie on an agonisingly slow connection and hope it¡¯s clear enough to watch and sans errors. Today, you can just stream it to your smartphone while lying in bed at night.

5. Find your Bonny lying over the ocean

With online dating, we don¡¯t have to limit ourselves to looking for love in social circles. It¡¯s not just made it easier to find partners when you¡¯re awkward in public, it¡¯s also made it so much easier for those looking for a good time to simply hook up and move on. And again, you have a way to partially vet a person before you even have to meet them, so that¡¯s definitely a plus point.

6. Play against the world

Thanks to the hardcore adoption of the Internet by the entertainment industry, today you can find allies and opponents online from anywhere across the world. Sure, it sucks that many studios don¡¯t have any love for local co-op play, arguably the golden era of gaming, but at least you still have a chance to make new friends with people that share what you love.

7. Meme culture is now a thing

It¡¯s a little tough to describe whether memes should fall on the pros or cons side of the world wide web¡¯s inception. On the one hand, they¡¯re a treasure trove of hilarity, jokes we can relate to in one situation or another, with the entire subculture shifting to adopt current events, nostalgic resurgences and even elevating nobodies to celebrity status.

On the other hand, memes can be downright terrible. Pepe the frog, Ugandan Knuckles, and more. Those, we can do without.

But hey, we have an overall positive right?