• 1974 - On-line ATMs introduced
• 1988 Commercial eMail worksite and educational institutions
• 1991, Al Gore "invents" the Internet wisely dubs it the “Information Superhighway” in December when Congress passes a bill to build the National Information Infrastructure
• 1992-1994 Starbucks opens in California
• 1995 the wwweb and the Internet becomes available to households with Netscape
• 1996 MapQuest.com
• 1996 (Palm) Pilot the first personal digital assistants (PDAs)
• 1997 IRC Chat and text messaging
• 1997 AOL Instant Messaging (IM)
• 1998 Cell Phones start to become mainstream
• 2000 Text messaging launched for cell phones (2nd Generation)
• 2000 eHarmony & Match.com online dating
• 2002 Blogging becomes available
• 2003 T-Mobile Hotspot develop wireless access
• 2003 MySpace launched

Internet 2 is a media generated term that is meant to imply that the electronic standards for improving the Internet are, in fact, being improved and being worked on by a "consortium" of businesses, governments, educational and research institutions and leaders worldwide. Standards are thought to be developed for:

Speed, connectivity, electronic universal languages, technology, physical infrastructure and so on.

In fact, they are not.

| Internet2 (Not) | Internt2Abilene (Is) | Internet2 FAQs |

Some of the main organizations running the Internet and contributing to its architecture and use include:

 

 

Internet Architecture Board (IAB)

Oversees Internet protocols and procedures and the creation of Internet standards.

 

W3C, World Wide Web Consortium

An industry consortium run by MIT that develops standards for the evolution of the Web. Registrars ...

ICANN

Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (supersedes some IANA functions) and list of Accredited Registrars.

InterNIC at Network Solutions

Directory and Databases.

Web 2.0 is user driven form and content on the Web as opposed to organization driven content. From this point of view the internet information has four primary sharing patterns:

1. one-to-one,
2. one-to-many,
3. many-to-many,
4. and many-to-one.

Technologies to meet all four of these design patterns are evolving and include (RSS blogs, RSS Feeds, wikis, tagging, IM, Flickr, Twitter, MySpace, Facebook, Social Networking sites, Shared bookmarking like del.icio.us, and chat as examples.

In Summary - What do users of the Internet do with the Internet?

Shopping, entertainment, selling, banking, exchanging information, social networking, play, advertise, pay, and much more.

The Top Google Searches by year (Every year, Google compiles a huge list of its top searches; this list is known as the Google Zeitgeist.)
http://websearch.about.com/b/2008/12/12/the-top-google-searches-of-2008.htm

There are perhaps 900 million - over a billion connected computers that make up the Internet as backbone computers and domain servers (Hosts) - computers with a registered IP address. This isn't counting the temporarily connected computers that log on and off, like the one you are using now.

As noted above, these computers talk to each other using an electronic language TCP (transmission control protocol) and set of rules called Internet Protocols for identifying specific servers and sites addresses (IP for short). There is much more to it than that, but essentially, we use the Internet and its parts to send and receive, exchange and share information.

By December 31, 2008, 1.574 billion people were using the Internet according to Internet World Statistics.

The WWW is a part, a small part actually, of the Internet. It is one type of information exchange and not the most popular...just the most talked about.

Let's look at the Internet and distinguish it from the World Wide Web. The following chart show the major types of information exchange protocols on the Internet. Which is the biggest?

• The Internet - A network of networks. Intranets and extranets are subsets of the Internet that can only be viewed by certain groups.
  
  The Internet is not just computers (the backbone is the servers and host machines). It is the Routers that sort the transmission from source to destination, the Telecommunication Systems that carry the transmissions (telephone line, satellite, WiFi, fiberoptic lines, Cable and so on), the ISPs, aka Internet Service Providers,that give users like use temporary access to the Internet called Connectivity, The electronic languages, translators and Protocols that allow machines to speak to each other, and the Tracking and Sorting done by the IP Address and DNS computers.
• Intranets - Private networks (servers, Websites, databases) sharing products, software, calendars, front ends to databases, file and software sharing, email, and so on. You're on one now. Often called a LAN or Local Area Network.
• Extranets - Partnerships of linked intranets
• WiFi - Wi-Fi is a registered trademark specifically referring to any "wireless" local area network (WLAN). It does not stand for Wide Fidelity. It is radio wave frequencies requiring a transmitter and receiver. Short range (Bluetooth) systems extend a few hundred feet and are used for wireless household WLANs, Local "hotspot (hawknet or coffee shop hotspots) and gaming devices (Guitar Hero controllers on the XBOX). Longer range systems (cell phone towers0 extend several miles and are used for cell phones, PDA, iPhones, Blackberries and such.
• Client - A computer operated by an information consumer aka operator (you). As a user, you are part of the Internet, but only temporarily, and if your computer broke down no one would know or care or be affected. Your Computer - An access point to the Internet but not a "stop" on the "information highway." aka the "client" in a client-server relationship
• Server - A Computer/information provider. It is part of the Internet "highway." AKA the "server" in a client-server relationship
  
  

  The Client/Server Relationship - A server is a computer on steroids and amphetamines (fast, powerful, sleepless - connected to the Internet 24/7) that "serves" pages through the Internet upon request by the user operating a client computer. 

  	Server Characteristics	Client Characteristics
  	hardware and software Lives in a closet not person friendly operated by software acts like a chauffeur, leaning against the limo, waiting acts like a waiter running from table to table serving	hardware and software operated by a person lives in a ... acts like a ...

  
  

• ISP - Internet Service Provider. A company that provides you with a connection to the Internet servers (connectivity)
• modem/phone line - if you connect to the Internet from you home computer, you need a modem (hardware and software driver) and a phone line/cable/wireless connection to send and receive messages. There are many types to choose from - dial-up, DSL, ISDN, Frame Relay, cable, etc.
• TCP/IP - Protocol for how computers find each other, identify themselves, and converse through electronic transmission.
• http - hypertext transmission protocol is how the browser on your computer finds the webhost machine with the website you want to see and sends it to your and opens and displays the associated files.
• Web Page - A single document (file) on the Web
• Web Site - A collection of related Web pages.
• Homepage - The first page  you see when you visit a site; the front door. Sometimes called or preceded by a splash page.
  

Servers - Up to this point, we have focused on web page servers, servers that primarily serve up a certain type of file format, html files predominately and and few other types such as jpegs and gifs (graphic formats). The browser then displays the file as a formatted web page and places the graphics on the page. You need other types of servers as well.

What does the Internet look like?