1990: First commercial dial-up ISP
- The first commercial dial-up Internet provider, The World is created while Arpanet ceases to exist.
1991: First web page created
- Tim Berners-Lee coins the phrase World Wide Web (WWW) in reference to a browser built for the NeXTstep platform. The first web page is created.
- James Gosling invents Java.
- Apple releases the first version of QuickTime.
1993: Mosaic – first graphical web browser for the general public
- Mosaic, the first widely downloaded Internet browser is released. It is the first browser to make the Internet easily accessible to non-tech people.
1994: Big Year
- Mosaic’s first big competitor, Netscape Navigator, is released.
- The White House goes online.
- The WWW beats out telnet to become the second most popular Internet service. FTP is first.
- Web Crawler and Lycos search engines are released.
- Jerry Yang and David Filo create “Jerry’s Guide to the World Wide Web” which is later named Yahoo.
- The World Wide Web Consortium is formed.
- Federal Express launches its online package tracking service.
- Database software MySQL, co-founded by Michael “Monty” Widenius and David Axmark, changes the way data is stored, organized, and delivered to web pages. This was the culmination of work that really began in 1978.
- The word spam is coined in relation to unsolicited email.
- Monster.com is launched.
1995: Commercialization of the Internet
- SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) encryption is developed by Netscape, making it safer to conduct financial transactions online.
- eBay, originally called Echo Bay, makes its first sale.
- Amazon.com is launched 1995 but doesn’t make a profit until 2001.
1996: First web-based (webmail) service
- HoTMaiL,the first webmail service, is launched.
1997: The term "weblog" is coined
- The term "weblog" is used.
1998: First news story to be broken online instead of traditional media
- The Drudge Report posts a story about the Bill Clinton/Monica Lewinsky scandal. This is the first major news story to be broken online.
1998: Google and file sharing
- Google goes live revolutionizing the way in which people find information online.
- Napster is launched, opening the floodgates to mainstream file-sharing of audio files over the internet.
