1. The First Website: The first-ever website, created by Tim Berners-Lee in 1991, was dedicated to providing information about the World Wide Web project itself. It explained how to use the web and provided resources for newcomers.
The URL for the first website is: http://info.cern.ch/hypertext/WWW/TheProject.html
2. Symbolics.com: The first registered domain name on the internet was “symbolics.com.” It was registered on March 15, 1985. The company, Symbolics, Inc., was involved in computer systems and software development.
3. The First Email Spam: The concept of email spam is nothing new. The first instance of email spam is believed to have occurred in 1978 when Gary Thuerk, a marketer, sent a mass email promoting a new computer to 393 recipients.
4. The Number of Internet Users: It’s estimated that over half of the world’s population have access to the internet. However, this still leaves a significant portion of the global population without internet access.
5. Internet Traffic Through Underwater Cables: The majority of international internet traffic is transmitted through a vast network of underwater fiber-optic cables that crisscross the world’s oceans. These cables play a crucial role in enabling global connectivity.
6. The World’s First Webcam: The world’s first webcam was set up at the University of Cambridge to monitor a coffee pot. This allowed researchers to check if the coffee pot was empty or full without leaving their desks.
7. The “I Am Rich” App: In 2008, an app called “I Am Rich” appeared on the Apple App Store, priced at $999.99. The app’s sole purpose was to display a glowing red gem on the user’s device. Eight people actually bought the app before Apple removed it.
8. Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine: The Wayback Machine, operated by the Internet Archive, is a digital archive of the World Wide Web. It allows users to access archived versions of websites as they appeared in the past, even if the original site no longer exists.
9. “Google” Was Almost “Backrub”: Google’s original name was “Backrub.” The name was changed to “Google,” derived from the term “googol,” which refers to the number 1 followed by 100 zeros.
10. IPv4 Address Exhaustion: The internet relies on a system of IP addresses to identify devices. The most common version of this system, IPv4, has a limited number of addresses. Due to the rapid growth of the internet, IPv4 addresses became scarce, leading to the development and adoption of IPv6, which provides a vastly larger pool of addresses.