Marshall Brain's Blog

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The Web's 10 Year Anniversary

It is hard to believe but true that the Web did not exist 10 years ago. On November 11, 1993, version 1.0 of the first Web Browser became available on the Internet. This piece of software was called Mosaic. The Web was born on the day that Mosaic appeared.

Think about everything that has happened in those 10 years:

• No normal person had an Internet connection in 1993. Today, more than 60 percent of U.S. households have an Internet connection.
  
• None of the large Internet companies existed in 1993: Yahoo, Amazon, eBay, Buy, E*Trade, Google, Travelocity, Match, etc. No one could have even predicted their creation in 1993 because the Web did not exist to support them.
  
• No one in 1993 read the news on CNN.com, NYTimes.com, MSNBC.com, WashingtonPost.com, ABCnews.com, etc. Today tens of millions of people check the Web for their news every single day.
  
• No one shopped on the Web, bought tickets on the Web, hooked up with dates on the Web, blogged on the Web, participated in auctions on the Web, looked up movie trailers or reviews on the Web, traded or purchased music on the Web, used Instant Messaging on the Web, etc. in 1993. Today these activities are taken completely for granted.
  
• A tiny handful of people used email in 1993. Today email is essential for both business and personal communication, with trillions of messages sent every year.
  
• The entire Internet Bubble came and went on the stock market since 1993. Hundreds of billions of dollars were invested and lost in new Internet companies.

All in 10 years.

In other words, the Web absolutely did not exist in 1993. It appeared out of nowhere and then exploded. In 2003, the Web is completely woven into our lives and is used by more than half of the U.S. population. The Web has had huge effects on the way people do things. All in just 10 short years.



That pace of change seems fast, and it is, but it is not unusual in America. Even 100 years ago things could change very quickly. The first Model T Ford, for example, was sold in the 1909 model year, and in that first year only 10,000 were manufactured. By 1912 there were 3,500 Ford dealers selling 300,000 cars per year. Just a few years later, Ford was selling 2 million cars per year and there were over 100 companies competing with Ford. Even a century ago, a popular idea could catch on and spread very quickly.

[Interesting fact -- in 2002, Ford sold only 4 million cars.]