Forty years ago today, two huge computers in a University of California lab passed test data to each other through a 15-foot cable. Twenty people, including internet pioneer Len Kleinrock were gathered to watch the event, and none would have imagined how significant the technology would become — or how fast it would develop.
Kleinrock's lab was the birthplace of the Arpanet network, the granddaddy of today's internet. From that moment on it was all change, with the 70s throwing up email and TCP/IP protocols, and the 1980s developing today's addressing system with suffixes like .com and .org.
Of course, things really took off in the 1990s, when Briton Tim Berners Lee created the web — suddenly making it easier to connect resources across the globe.
With the web came the gold rush of the dot.com boom and the flowering of thousands of web design companies. When the bubble burst, many of them went out of business, but the ones with real expertise began to diversify into the developing search engine optimisation business, new ecommerce opportunities, not to mention the now-booming digital direct marketing sector.
A real passion for the internet has been the factor that has helped Coast Digital flourish, and carve out impressive return on investment on behalf of its clients. So here's wishing the internet a very happy birthday, and please do contact us to learn more about our approach to the world wide web.
