The 50 most significant moments of Internet history

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

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The Internet has always been a sociable place, whether you wanted to talk about movies and software, or techniques for ensnaring Oompa Loompas for bondage picnics. Our choices for this section highlight the importance conversation has had as the Net developed.

Before any online chat service used today, there was Usenet, and it still exists. In some ways one of the first peer-to-peer systems, Usenet was, and is, a vast discussion service, and the precursor to every Web-based message board and Internet Relay Chat application used around the globe.

Where discussions were called 'conferences', The Well was the intellectual watering hole and the hub of intelligent debate for over two decades. Luring in the world's geeks, futurists, philosophers and debate-lovers from all walks of life, it started life as a BBS, but now hosts a more modest community via the Web. Notably, the EFF's founders met through the service, and it was a highly respected, influential community in its heyday.

A Department of Information Processing Science employee at the University of Oulu, Finland, Jarkko Oikarinen created the IRC client with the desire to expand upon the popular BBS systems, in order to facilitate real-time chat. In less than 12 months, IRC had proliferated across the globe, running on around 40 servers.

Almost a decade before Skype released its first client, an Israeli company called VocalTec released Internet Phone, which is regarded as the first commercial VoIP application for desktop computers. We were all rocking dial-up modems at this point, but the software's ability to deal with slow connections and Internet packet loss helped it pave the way for VoIP to hit the mainstream.

Although not the first instance of real-time chat via computer terminals, ICQ was the first global, GUI-based instant messaging client, and its popularity exploded in the late 90s. It was created by another Israeli company, Mirabilis, and was quickly acquired by AOL in 1998 for just over $400m, despite the fact that AOL ran its own IM network, AOL Messenger.