4 ms·

The web was developed for a long time before 1996. I'd wager cryptocurrency has another 8 years before it's mainstream.

dboreham 9y ago
I thought the Internet had gone mainstream in 1992 when I was passed by a UPS truck with their URL painted on the side..
- 392c91e8165b 9y ago
  Are you sure it was 1992? Wikipedia says that there were only 50 web servers in the world in January 1993, and my recollection is that were all at educational and research institutions. I don't think for example that any of the major computer companies, e.g., Microsoft or Apple, had web site that early. (They had internet connectivity, domain names, mail servers, ftp servers -- but back then, ftp servers did not have URLs.) Maybe one or 2 had web servers, but if they did, they were probably the personal projects of one or two employees. Most of the world's web pages were about computers and the internet.
  - secabeen 9y ago
    Yeah, 1992 is way too early for that. Even then, it wasn't fully mainstream until advertisers felt able to drop the http://www http://www from the url. When companies could just put coke.com at the end of their TV ads or on the can, it was as mainstream as anything.
    - dboreham 9y ago
      As I said above it was a surprise to me at the time, but nevertheless true. The domain was registered in April 1992.
  - dboreham 9y ago
    Yes. It was something of a surprise at the time. It was also in the UK, on the A1. I know the year because it was shortly after I started a specific job that required driving up and down the A1 often. It would have been late in the year because I think I started that job in November. Here is the registered date from whois for ups.com : Created Date: 1992-04-07 I think you (or Wikipedia) are quite mistaken about 50 web servers in early 1993. I remember giving a talk about the Internet in 93 where I showed examples of web sites that were available at the time. One of them was IMDB. If I think of the servers that I ran and my friends ran, I'd get to about 20 so I have a very hard time believing there were only 50 in total. Perhaps there was a huge amount of server growth during 1993?

I thought the Internet had gone mainstream in 1992 when I was passed by a UPS truck with their URL painted on the side..

392c91e8165b 9y ago
Are you sure it was 1992? Wikipedia says that there were only 50 web servers in the world in January 1993, and my recollection is that were all at educational and research institutions. I don't think for example that any of the major computer companies, e.g., Microsoft or Apple, had web site that early. (They had internet connectivity, domain names, mail servers, ftp servers -- but back then, ftp servers did not have URLs.) Maybe one or 2 had web servers, but if they did, they were probably the personal projects of one or two employees. Most of the world's web pages were about computers and the internet.
- secabeen 9y ago
  Yeah, 1992 is way too early for that. Even then, it wasn't fully mainstream until advertisers felt able to drop the http://www http://www from the url. When companies could just put coke.com at the end of their TV ads or on the can, it was as mainstream as anything.
  - dboreham 9y ago
    As I said above it was a surprise to me at the time, but nevertheless true. The domain was registered in April 1992.
- dboreham 9y ago
  Yes. It was something of a surprise at the time. It was also in the UK, on the A1. I know the year because it was shortly after I started a specific job that required driving up and down the A1 often. It would have been late in the year because I think I started that job in November. Here is the registered date from whois for ups.com : Created Date: 1992-04-07 I think you (or Wikipedia) are quite mistaken about 50 web servers in early 1993. I remember giving a talk about the Internet in 93 where I showed examples of web sites that were available at the time. One of them was IMDB. If I think of the servers that I ran and my friends ran, I'd get to about 20 so I have a very hard time believing there were only 50 in total. Perhaps there was a huge amount of server growth during 1993?