Google, Facebook, Amazon, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, and just about every website — Pickr included — has a reason to celebrate today, as the very thing that allowed their existence turns 30.
Log onto Google today, and you’ll probably see a retro Google Doodle, showing what the web used to be like back when computers looked like boxes and the internet loaded line-by-line.
Those were the days the internet had begun, starting in the 90s, though its roots go back a little before then, even.
In 1989, Sir Tim Berners-Lee submitted a concept about what a massive system of linked computers would be like, something he nicknamed the “Mesh”, that would be used to help colleagues share files and data between their computers.
It wasn’t just a concept, and Berners-Lee developed the beginnings of the web creating the world’s first web browser and a new language known as “HTML”, or “Hyper Text Media Language”. You know the “http” that sits at the beginning of almost every website you’ve ever been to (and is probably there on every one, but hidden by browsers)? That stands for something, meaning “HyperText Transfer Protocol”, providing the basis for sending text and media from computer to computer.
The beginnings of the internet and the world wide web — what we used to call everything — happened on March 12, 1989, but really started kicking off a few years later.
It’s now more expansive than it has ever been, and almost every business and aspect of our lives relies on it. You probably can’t get by in life without emailing, checking social media, or reading the news on a website, and none of this would be possible without the world wide web.
And today it turns 30. Happy Birthday, World Wide Web, and thank you, Tim.
