The 50 most significant moments of Internet history

By Nate Lanxon on 25 September 2008, 4:02pm

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Even a list of 50 significant moments is small when discussing several decades of history. Our original list of researched moments contained almost 200 events.

Below are some of the ones that made the final list of around 100, but not the 50 you've just seen. You are, of course, encouraged to leave what you consider to be the most important moments, in our comments section below below, or discuss them with us in the dedicated thread in our forums.

Honourable mentions from 'In the Beginning'
1978 - First BBS system online in America
1983 - FidoNet online
1984 - Cisco founded
1985 - .uk domain extension introduced

Honourable mentions from 'Wiring the Web'
1981 - Hayes Communications creates the Smartmodem
1993 - CNET founded
1994 - First mainstream banner ad with click-through rates used
1995 - Internet Explorer created

Honourable mentions from 'All About Email'
1982 - Dr Jonathan Postel proposes SMTP protocol
1989 - Lotus Notes email software released
1996 - Microsoft releases Internet Mail and News 1.0
1998 - BlackBerry 850 launches

Honourable mentions from 'Welcome to the Social'
1991 - AOL begins development of AIM, releasing six years later
1998 - Open Diary launched
2002 - Friendster founded
2003 - MySpace relaunched as social network

Honourable mentions from 'Online Media'
1991 - First networked webcam set up inside Cambridge University
1995 - RealAudio version 1.0 released
2007 - BBC iPlayer launched
2007 - iTunes launches DRM-free store with EMI on-board

Honourable mentions from 'Web Property'
1994 - World Wide Web Consortium founded by Tim Berners-Lee
1995 - AltaVista search engine launched
1997 - First instance of BBC News Web site goes live
1997 - Heat.net gaming network starts up
1999 - Goatse.cx shocks unwary surfers
1996 - DoubleClick founded

Honourable mentions from 'Web 1.0'
1995 - Boing Boing launches as Web site
1996 - JenniCam goes live
1998 - Hamster Dance launches
1999 - WebVan launches, just before epically failing
2000 - Dotcom bubble bursts

Honourable mentions from 'Web 2.0'
2001 - b2, which became WordPress, is created
2004 - Flickr launches
2006 - Twitter launches
2006 - Facebook abandons college-only approach, allows anyone to join

Honourable mentions from 'Law and Order'
1994 - Vladimir Levin $10.7m bank hack
2002 - Gary McKinnon arrested
2003 - RIAA mistakenly sues grandma for sharing gangsta rap
2007 - Jammie Thomas fined $220,000 for sharing 24 songs on the Net
2007 - Apple gets ThinkSecret shut down
2007 - AllOfMP3.com is clobbered

Honourable mentions from 'Most Epic Fails'
2006 - Google accidentally deletes own official blog
2006 - Capcom gang bang URL controversy
2007 - iTunes accidentally leaks Stargate Atlantis

Here's to the next decade!