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The Impact of the Internet on Business
Current Uses of the Internet
The Internet has a wide variety of uses. It provides an excellent means for disseminating information and communicating with other people in all regions of the world. While the greatest use of the Internet has been sharing information, other sources of use are rapidly developing. For instance, chat rooms, a space where people can go to discuss an assortment of issues, and Internet Commerce, which connects buyers and sellers online. The following are other examples of current Internet uses:
1. Technical Papers
Originally, the Internet was only used by the government and universities. Research scientists used the Internet to communicate with other scientists at different labs and to access powerful computer systems at distant computing facilities. Scientists also shared the results of their work in technical papers stored locally on their computer system in ftp sites. Researchers from other facilities used the Internet to access the ftp directory and obtain these technical papers. Examples of research sites are NASA and NASA AMES.
2. Share Company Information
Commercial companies are now using the Web for many purposes. One of the first ways that commercial companies used the Web was to share information with their employees. Sterling Software's Web page informs employees about such things as training schedules and C++ Guidelines. There is also some information which is company private and access is restricted to company employees only. Another company example is Sun Microsystems which similarily contains general information about the Sun Microsystems company.
3. Product Information
One of the ways businesses share information is to present their product information on a Web page. Some examples are: Cray Research, Sun Microsystems, Hewlet Packard, and GM's Pontiac Site. The Web provides an easy and efficient way for companies to distribute product information to their current and potential customers.
4. Advertising
Along these lines, companies are beginning to actually advertise online. Some examples of different ways to advertise online are Netscape's Ad Page. Netscape has a list of advertising companies. They also use a banner for advertisements on their Yahoo Web Page. Starware similarly uses banner advertisement. These advertisements are created in the established advertising model where the advertising is positioned between rather than within editorial items. Another type of advertising focuses on entertaining the customers and keeping them at the companies' site for a longer time period. Some of the more interesting of these are:
- MCI with a soap opera/ detective story.
- Ragu Soap Opera, Italian art, prizes, etc.
- Stoli Puzzles, submit drink receipes, prizes, etc.
- Miller Genuine Draft Discussions on various topics such as music scene in Austin. The advantages of each method of advertising will be discussed in more detail in the section on strategic risks and target markets.
5. Business & Commerce on the Net
Commercial use restrictions of the Internet were lifted in 1991. This has caused an explosion of commercial use. More information about business on the Internet can be found at the Commerce Net. This site has information such as the projected growth of advertising on the Internet and online services. Commercial Services on the Net has a list of various businesses on the Internet. They are many unusual businesses listed here such that you begin to wonder if they are legitimate businesses. This topic is discussed in more detail in the section on risks and consumer confidence. Business and Commerce provides consumer product information. The Federal Trade Commission is also quite concerned about legal business on the Internet. WWW users are clearly upscale, professional, and well educated compared with the population as a whole. For example, from CommerceNet's Survey (CommerceNet is a not for-profit 501c(6) mutual benefit corporation which is conducting the first large- scale market trial of technologies and business processes to support electronic commerce via the Internet) as of 10/30/95 :
- (^) 25% of WWW users earn household income of more than $80,000 whereas only 10% of the total US and Canadian population has that level of income.
- 50% of WWW users consider themselves to be in professional or managerial occupations. In contrast, 27% of the total US and Canadian population categorize themselves to have such positions.
- 64% of WWW users have at least college degrees while the US and Canadian national level is 29%. CommerceNet's study also found that there is a sizable base of Internet Users in the US and Canada. With 24 million Internet users (16 years of age or older) and 18 million WWW users (16 years of age or older), WWW users are a key target for business applications. Approximately 2.5 million people have made purchases using the WWW. The Internet is, however, heavily skewed to males in terms of both usage and users. Access through work is also an important factor for both the Internet and online services such as America Online and CompuServe. For an example of the size of the market, the total Internet usage exceeds online services and is approximately equivalent to playback of rented videotapes.
6. Magazines
Magazines are starting to realize that they can attract customers online. Examples of magazines now published online are Outside, Economist, and Business Week. These magazines are still published in hard copy, but they are now also available online. Many of these publications are available free sometimes because of the time delay (i.e. publications online are past issues) or usually to draw in subscribers for a free initial trial period. Some of these publications may remain free online if advertisers pay for the publications with their advertisement banners.
7. Newspapers
Some newspapers are beginning to publish online. The San Jose Mercury News is a full newspaper online, while the Seattle Times offers just classified ads and educational information. The Dow Jones Wall Street Journal publishes its front page online with highlighted links from the front page to complete stories. The Journal also provides links to briefing books, which provide financial information on the company, stock performance, and recent articles and press releases. For an example of a briefing book see, Netscape Briefing Book. This is all free by the Wall Street Journal during the trial period which should last until mid 1996.
8. Employment Ads
14. Tourism
Plan a trip to Australia or New Zealand with information gathered off the Internet. These and other countries are on the Internet. So you can plan your vacation from your computer.
15. Movie Previews
Who needs Siskel and Ebert, when you can be your own movie critic? Buena Vista Movie Clips provides movie clips from many of their new releases. For a sample movie clip preview "Unstrung Heroes".
16. Chat Rooms on AOL
Chat rooms are a more interactive technology. America Online provides areas where people can "log on" and converse with others with similar interests in real time. This is the first popular use of interactivity by the general public. The other uses up until recently have been more static, one-way distribution of information. Interactivity is the future of the Internet (See the next section).
Forecast of How the Internet & WWW Might Be
Used in the Future
There are many ways that the Internet could be used in the next 3 to 5 years. The main aspect that they all have in common is the increased use of interactivity on the Internet. This means that the Internet will shift from being a one-way distribution of information to a two-way information stream. Scientists will continue to lead the way in this area by watching the results from scientific experiments and exchanging ideas through live audio and video feeds. Due to budget cuts, this collaboration should be expected to increase even more to stretch what budget they do have. (For more information on this, check out Business Week article on science and technology "Welcome To The World Wide Lab" 10/30/95.)
1. Interactive Computer Games
One of the first areas where interactivity will increase on the Internet are computer games. People will no longer have to take turns playing solitary or crowd around one machine. Instead they will join a computer network game and compete against players located at distant sites. An example of this is Starwave's Fantasy Sports Game. This game is still a more traditional approach of updating statistics on the computer and players looking at their status. A more active game is Marathon Man, which portrays players on the screen reacting to various situations. In the future, many of these games will also include virtual reality.
2. Real Estate
Buying a home online will become possible. While very few people would want to buy a home without seeing it in person, having house listings online will help reduce the time it takes to purchase a home. People can narrow down which houses that they are actually interested in viewing by seeing their description and picture online. An example is this list of house descriptions by region of the country. This will be improved when database search capabilities are added. People can select the features that they are interested in and then search the database. In response, they will receive a list of houses that meet their criteria. Also, having several different images of the House as well as a short video clip of a walk through of the house, will help buyers make their selection quicker. This area is growing quickly. For example, the following
sites of interest to the West Coast were added online since the writing of this paper: Windermere Real Estate, Fractals, and Listinglink.
3. Process Mortgages online
After a house is chosen, potential buyers can apply for a mortgage online. No longer will buyers be restricted to local lending institutions, since many lenders will be able to compete online for business. Visit an example of an online mortgage computation. In the future, each lender will have a Web page which will process the mortgage application. One of the main reasons this has not been implemented is security, which is discussed further under the strategic risks and security section.
4. Buying stocks
Stocks will soon be able to be purchased over the Internet without the assistance of a broker. Charles Schwab has a prototype that is being tested currently in Florida. Once the security issues are ironed out, this application will also be active.
5. Ordering products.
Ordering products online is an important application. As mentioned above, the Pizza Page showed how easy it could be done. Other companies are setting up Web pages to actually do this. An example is TSI Soccer. Customers can actually order online if they choose to do so. They can even send their credit card number over the network. Since this is non-secure, most people probably still call the company to order any item.
6. Live Video
Viewing live video clips will become more common in the future. CNN has files of video clips of news stories at video vault which can be downloaded and viewed on a home computer. Seeing actual live video feed is dependent on network speed, and most home users do not have fast enough connections to make this a practical application yet. This is discussed in more detail under the section strategic risk and speed of network access. Once the speed of network connection increases, more people will be interested in live video clips.
7. "Chat" Internet Telephone
While AOL users are currently accessing "Chat Rooms" to communicate with other people on the Internet, they are restricted to text-based communication or possibly an icon as their identity online. CUCME from Carneige Mellon provides a means for people to actually see other people online. However, network speed is once again a limiting factor. If a user is not directly connected to the Internet (most connections are via modem), then the image is extremely slow. This application will become more popular with increased network connections.
8. Video Conferencing
On the other hand, businesses will begin using video to communicate with others. Andersen Consulting is setting up training online. There should also be some applications that businesses can choose to help set up video conferencing. IBM bought LOTUS Notes for this reason last summer. IBM needs to make it a more flexible solution by interacting LOTUS Notes with the Internet. They currently are in the process of doing this. Netscape also offers a solution based on the software company Collabora that they purchased last fall. These possible solutions should encourage businesses to use video conferencing and online training. Additional information on Video Conferencing is also available.
at 56 Kbps, but more expensive. Cable modems are faster yet with a speed of 4 Mbps. However, two-way interaction with a cable modem needs some more testing to be sure that it works as well as ISDN.
5. Picking Wrong Industry Standards
Along these lines of picking industry standards, companies must also be sure that the Web Browser that they develop for is the standard. Otherwise, some of the features that they are using to highlight their site may not work. Currently the defacto standard is Netscape. There also needs to be a standard language that adds high quality features such as animation, so that software applications written for the Internet will run on all the different types of architectures customers may have. Major computer industry players have backed JAVA by Sun Microsystems. So while some areas are becoming standardized, companies must be alert to industry changes to avoid becoming obsolete in hardware, software, and data communications.
6. Internet Community & Philosophy
The Internet was originally developed with a philosophy for sharing information and assisting others in their research. The original intent emphasised concern for others, technological advances, and not for profit organizations. With the lifting of commercial restrictions in 1991, businesses are now joining the Internet community. As with any small town that has a sudden increase in population, fast growth can cause problems. Old residents could create animosity if they feel that the new residents are taking over their community and causing congestion and prices to increase. Businesses need to be conscious of this phenomenon. While businesses can expect help from Internet users, businesses will lose this help if they only use it to make a quick profit. As in a large city, people will start to feel less like helping others in need. Businesses will be more successful on the Internet if they can emphasize how they can help add value to the Internet rather than focusing on how to make a quick profit. For example, businesses can take advantage of the opportunity to provide additional Internet services (e.g., services discussed in the sections on current uses of the Internet and future uses) now that funding from the government is being reduced. An example of a city that has grown rapidly, yet still considered very livable, is Seattle. One of the reasons attributed to Seattle's successful growth is, that despite it being a large city, there are numerous small communities within the city. These small communities retain such benefits as concern for others within the framework of services that a large city can provide. If businesses along with the Internet community follow this model, the Internet will have a chance to keep its successful small town atmosphere while adding increased services for more people.
Conclusion
The Internet is a dynamic environment. While there are many risks involved with change, there can be many benefits. This paper has given some ideas on possible benefits and possible risks. Now it is up to each business to decide if the potential benefits outweigh the potential risks. Hopefully, we'll see you on the Web!
Basic computer network components
Computer networks share common devices, functions, and features including servers, clients, transmission media, shared data, shared printers and other hardware and software resources,
network interface card(NIC), local operating system(LOS), and the network operating system (NOS).
Servers - Servers are computers that hold shared files, programs, and the network operating system. Servers provide access to network resources to all the users of the network. There are many different kinds of servers, and one server can provide several functions. For example, there are file servers, print servers, mail servers, communication servers, database servers, fax servers and web servers, to name a few.
Clients - Clients are computers that access and use the network and shared network resources. Client computers are basically the customers(users) of the network, as they request and receive services from the servers.
Transmission Media - Transmission media are the facilities used to interconnect computers in a network, such as twisted-pair wire, coaxial cable, and optical fiber cable. Transmission media are sometimes called channels, links or lines.
Shared data - Shared data are data that file servers provide to clients such as data files, printer access programs and e-mail.
Shared printers and other peripherals - Shared printers and peripherals are hardware resources provided to the users of the network by servers. Resources provided include data files, printers, software, or any other items used by clients on the network.
Network Interface Card - Each computer in a network has a special expansion card called a network interface card (NIC). The NIC prepares(formats) and sends data, receives data, and controls data flow between the computer and the network. On the transmit side, the NIC passes frames of data on to the physical layer, which transmits the data to the physical link. On the receiver's side, the NIC processes bits received from the physical layer and processes the message based on its contents.
Local Operating System - A local operating system allows personal computers to access files, print to a local printer, and have and use one or more disk and CD drives that are located on the computer. Examples are MS-DOS, Unix, Linux, Windows 2000, Windows 98, Windows XP etc.
Network Operating System - The network operating system is a program that runs on computers and servers, and allows the computers to communicate over the network.
Hub - Hub is a device that splits a network connection into multiple computers. It is like a distribution center. When a computer requests information from a network or a specific computer, it sends the request to the hub through a cable. The hub will receive the request and transmit it to the entire network. Each computer in the network should then figure out whether the broadcast data is for them or not.
Switch - Switch is a telecommunication device grouped as one of computer network components. Switch is like a Hub but built in with advanced features. It uses physical device addresses in each incoming messages so that it can deliver the message to the right destination or port.
Like a hub, switch doesn't broadcast the received message to entire network, rather before sending it checks to which system or port should the message be sent. In other words, switch connects the source and destination directly which increases the speed of the network. Both switch and hub have common features: Multiple RJ-45 ports, power supply and connection lights.
Router - When we talk about computer network components, the other device that used to connect a LAN with an internet connection is called Router. When you have two distinct networks (LANs) or want to share a single internet connection to multiple computers, we use
- Data link Frame Reliable transmission of data frames between two nodes connected by a physical layer
- Physical Bit Transmission and reception of raw bit streams over a physical medium
At each level N , two entities at the communicating devices (layer N peers ) exchange protocol data units (PDUs) by means of a layer N protocol. Each PDU contains a payload, called the service data unit (SDU), along with protocol-related headers or footers. Data processing by two communicating OSI-compatible devices is done as such:
- The data to be transmitted is composed at the topmost layer of the transmitting device (layer N ) into a protocol data unit ( PDU ).
- The PDU is passed to layer N-1 , where it is known as the service data unit ( SDU ).
- At layer N-1 the SDU is concatenated with a header, a footer, or both, producing a layer N-1 PDU. It is then passed to layer N-.
- The process continues until reaching the lowermost level, from which the data is transmitted to the receiving device.
- At the receiving device the data is passed from the lowest to the highest layer as a series of SDU s while being successively stripped from each layer's header or footer, until reaching the topmost layer, where the last of the data is consumed. Some orthogonal aspects, such as management and security, involve all of the layers (See ITU-T X.800 Recommendation[4]^ ). These services are aimed at improving the CIA triad - confidentiality, integrity, and availability - of the transmitted data. In practice, the availability of a communication service is determined by the interaction between network design and network management protocols. Appropriate choices for both of these are needed to protect against denial of service. [ citation needed ]
Layer 1: Physical Layer
The physical layer defines the electrical and physical specifications of the data connection. It defines the relationship between a device and a physical transmission medium (e.g., a copper or fiber optical cable, radio frequency). This includes the layout of pins, voltages, line impedance, cable specifications, signal timing and similar characteristics for connected devices and frequency (5 GHz or 2.4 GHz etc.) for wireless devices. It is responsible for transmission and reception of unstructured raw data in a physical medium. It may define transmission mode as simplex, half duplex, and full duplex. It defines the network topology as bus, mesh, or ring being some of the most common. The physical layer of Parallel SCSI operates in this layer, as do the physical layers of Ethernet and other local-area networks, such as token ring, FDDI, ITU-T G.hn, and IEEE 802.11 (Wi-Fi), as well as personal area networks such as Bluetooth and IEEE 802.15.4. The physical layer is the layer of low-level networking equipment, such as some hubs, cabling, and repeaters. The physical layer is never concerned with protocols or other such higher-layer items. Examples of hardware in this layer are network adapters, repeaters, network hubs, modems, and fiber media converters.
Layer 2: Data Link Layer
The data link layer provides node-to-node data transfer—a link between two directly connected nodes. It detects and possibly corrects errors that may occur in the physical layer. It defines the protocol to establish and terminate a connection between two physically connected devices. It also defines the protocol for flow control between them. IEEE 802 divides the data link layer into two sublayers:[5]
- Media access control (MAC) layer – responsible for controlling how devices in a network gain access to a medium and permission to transmit data.
- Logical link control (LLC) layer – responsible for identifying network layer protocols and then encapsulating them and controls error checking and frame synchronization.
The MAC and LLC layers of IEEE 802 networks such as 802.3 Ethernet, 802.11 Wi-Fi, and 802.15.4 ZigBee operate at the data link layer.
The Point-to-Point Protocol (PPP) is a data link layer protocol that can operate over several different physical layers, such as synchronous and asynchronous serial lines.
The ITU-T G.hn standard, which provides high-speed local area networking over existing wires (power lines, phone lines and coaxial cables), includes a complete data link layer that provides both error correction and flow control by means of a selective-repeat sliding- window protocol.
Layer 3: Network Layer
The network layer provides the functional and procedural means of transferring variable length data sequences (called datagrams) from one node to another connected to the same "network". A network is a medium to which many nodes can be connected, on which every node has an address and which permits nodes connected to it to transfer messages to other nodes connected to it by merely providing the content of a message and the address of the destination node and letting the network find the way to deliver the message to the destination node, possibly routing it through intermediate nodes. If the message is too large to be transmitted from one node to another on the data link layer between those nodes, the network may implement message delivery by splitting the message into several fragments at one node, sending the fragments independently, and reassembling the fragments at another node. It may, but need not, report delivery errors.
Message delivery at the network layer is not necessarily guaranteed to be reliable; a network layer protocol may provide reliable message delivery, but it need not do so.
A number of layer-management protocols, a function defined in the management annex , ISO 7498/4, belong to the network layer. These include routing protocols, multicast group management, network-layer information and error, and network-layer address assignment. It is the function of the payload that makes these belong to the network layer, not the protocol that carries them.[6]
Layer 4: Transport Layer
The transport layer provides the functional and procedural means of transferring variable- length data sequences from a source to a destination host via one or more networks, while maintaining the quality of service functions.
An example of a transport-layer protocol in the standard Internet stack is Transmission Control Protocol (TCP), usually built on top of the Internet Protocol (IP).
The transport layer controls the reliability of a given link through flow control, segmentation/ desegmentation, and error control. Some protocols are state- and connection-oriented. This means that the transport layer can keep track of the segments and re-transmit those that fail. The transport layer also provides the acknowledgement of the successful data transmission and sends the next data if no errors occurred. The transport layer creates packets out of the message received from the application layer. Packetizing is a process of dividing the long message into smaller messages.
OSI defines five classes of connection-mode transport protocols ranging from class 0 (which is also known as TP0 and provides the fewest features) to class 4 (TP4, designed for less reliable networks, similar to the Internet). Class 0 contains no error recovery, and was
This layer provides independence from data representation (e.g., encryption) by translating between application and network formats. The presentation layer transforms data into the form that the application accepts. This layer formats and encrypts data to be sent across a network. It is sometimes called the syntax layer.[8]
The original presentation structure used the Basic Encoding Rules of Abstract Syntax Notation One (ASN.1), with capabilities such as converting an EBCDIC-coded text file to an ASCII-coded file, or serialization of objects and other data structures from and to XML.
Layer 7: Application Layer
The application layer is the OSI layer closest to the end user, which means both the OSI
application layer and the user interact directly with the software application. This layer
interacts with software applications that implement a communicating component. Such
application programs fall outside the scope of the OSI model. Application-layer functions
typically include identifying communication partners, determining resource availability, and
synchronizing communication. When identifying communication partners, the application
layer determines the identity and availability of communication partners for an application
with data to transmit. When determining resource availability, the application layer must
decide whether sufficient network resources for the requested communication are available.
TCP/IP Protocol Architecture
TCP/IP protocols map to a four-layer conceptual model known as the DARPA model , named after the U.S. government agency that initially developed TCP/IP. The four layers of the DARPA model are: Application, Transport, Internet, and Network Interface. Each layer in the DARPA model corresponds to one or more layers of the seven-layer Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) model.
Figure 1.1 shows the TCP/IP protocol architecture.
Figure 1.1 TCP/IP Protocol Architecture
Network Interface Layer
The Network Interface layer (also called the Network Access layer) is responsible for placing TCP/IP packets on the network medium and receiving TCP/IP packets off the network medium. TCP/IP was designed to be independent of the network access method, frame format, and medium. In this way, TCP/IP can be used to connect differing network types. These include LAN technologies such as Ethernet and Token Ring and WAN technologies such as X.25 and Frame Relay. Independence from any specific network technology gives TCP/IP the ability to be adapted to new technologies such as Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM).
The Network Interface layer encompasses the Data Link and Physical layers of the OSI model. Note that the Internet layer does not take advantage of sequencing and acknowledgment services that might be present in the Data-Link layer. An unreliable Network Interface layer is assumed, and reliable communications through session establishment and the sequencing and acknowledgment of packets is the responsibility of the Transport layer.
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Internet Layer
The Internet layer is responsible for addressing, packaging, and routing functions. The core protocols of the Internet layer are IP, ARP, ICMP, and IGMP.
- The Internet Protocol (IP) is a routable protocol responsible for IP addressing, routing, and the fragmentation and reassembly of packets.
- The Address Resolution Protocol (ARP) is responsible for the resolution of the Internet layer address to the Network Interface layer address such as a hardware address.
- The Internet Control Message Protocol (ICMP) is responsible for providing diagnostic functions and reporting errors due to the unsuccessful delivery of IP packets.
- The Internet Group Management Protocol (IGMP) is responsible for the management of IP multicast groups.
The Internet layer is analogous to the Network layer of the OSI model.
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Transport Layer
The Transport layer (also known as the Host-to-Host Transport layer) is responsible for providing the Application layer with session and datagram communication services. The core protocols of the Transport layer are Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) and the User Datagram Protocol (UDP).
- TCP provides a one-to-one, connection-oriented, reliable communications service. TCP is responsible for the establishment of a TCP connection, the sequencing and acknowledgment of packets sent, and the recovery of packets lost during transmission.
- UDP provides a one-to-one or one-to-many, connectionless, unreliable communications service. UDP is used when the amount of data to be transferred is small (such as the data that would fit into a single packet), when the overhead of establishing a TCP connection is not desired or when the applications or upper layer protocols provide reliable delivery.
The Transport layer encompasses the responsibilities of the OSI Transport layer and some of the responsibilities of the OSI Session layer.
(TCP/IP) was introduced as the standard networking protocol on the ARPANET. In the early 1980s the NSF funded the establishment for national supercomputing centers at several universities, and provided interconnectivity in 1986 with the NSFNET project, which also created network access to the supercomputer sites in the United States from research and education organizations. Commercial Internet service providers (ISPs) began to emerge in the very late 1980s. The ARPANET was decommissioned in 1990. Limited private connections to parts of the Internet by officially commercial entities emerged in several American cities by late 1989 and 1990,[5]^ and the NSFNET was decommissioned in 1995, removing the last
restrictions on the use of the Internet to carry commercial traffic.
In the 1980s, research at CERN in Switzerland by British computer scientist Tim Berners- Lee resulted in the World Wide Web, linking hypertext documents into an information system, accessible from any node on the network.[6]^ Since the mid-1990s, the Internet has had a revolutionary impact on culture, commerce, and technology, including the rise of near- instant communication by electronic mail, instant messaging, voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) telephone calls, two-way interactive video calls, and the World Wide Web with its discussion forums, blogs, social networking, and online shopping sites. The research and education community continues to develop and use advanced networks such as NSF's very high speed Backbone Network Service (vBNS), Internet2, and National LambdaRail. Increasing amounts of data are transmitted at higher and higher speeds over fiber optic networks operating at 1-Gbit/s, 10-Gbit/s, or more. The Internet's takeover of the global communication landscape was almost instant in historical terms: it only communicated 1% of the information flowing through two-way telecommunications networks in the year 1993, already 51% by 2000, and more than 97% of the telecommunicated information by 2007.[7] Today the Internet continues to grow, driven by ever greater amounts of online information, commerce, entertainment, and social networking.
World Wide Web and introduction of browsers Main articles: World Wide Web, Web browser, and History of the web browser
The World Wide Web (sometimes abbreviated "www" or "W3") is an information space where documents and other web resources are identified by URIs, interlinked by hypertext links, and can be accessed via the Internet using a web browser and (more recently) web- based applications. [64]^ It has become known simply as "the Web". As of the 2010s, the World Wide Web is the primary tool billions use to interact on the Internet, and it has changed people's lives immeasurably.[65][66][67]
Precursors to the web browser emerged in the form of hyperlinked applications during the mid and late 1980s (the bare concept of hyperlinking had by then existed for some decades). Following these, Tim Berners-Lee is credited with inventing the World Wide Web in 1989 and developing in 1990 both the first web server, and the first web browser, called WorldWideWeb (no spaces) and later renamed Nexus. [68]^ Many others were soon developed, with Marc Andreessen's 1993 Mosaic (later Netscape), [69]^ being particularly easy to use and install, and often credited with sparking the internet boom of the 1990s. [70]^ Today, the major web browsers are Firefox, Internet Explorer, Google Chrome, Opera and Safari. [71] A boost in web users was triggered in September 1993 by NCSA Mosaic, a graphical browser which eventually ran on several popular office and home computers.[72]^ This was the first web browser aiming to bring multimedia content to non-technical users, and therefore included images and text on the same page, unlike previous browser designs;[73]^ its founder, Marc Andreessen, also established the company that in 1994, released Netscape Navigator, which resulted in one of the early browser wars, when it ended up in a competition for dominance (which it lost) with Microsoft Windows' Internet Explorer. Commercial use
restrictions were lifted in 1995. The online service America Online (AOL) offered their users a connection to the Internet via their own internal browser.
Email and Usenet
E-mail has often been called the killer application of the Internet. It predates the Internet, and was a crucial tool in creating it. Email started in 1965 as a way for multiple users of a time- sharing mainframe computer to communicate. Although the history is undocumented, among the first systems to have such a facility were the System Development Corporation (SDC) Q32 and the Compatible Time-Sharing System (CTSS) at MIT.[153] The ARPANET computer network made a large contribution to the evolution of electronic mail. An experimental inter-system transferred mail on the ARPANET shortly after its creation.[154]^ In 1971 Ray Tomlinson created what was to become the standard Internet electronic mail addressing format, using the @ sign to separate mailbox names from host names.[155]
A number of protocols were developed to deliver messages among groups of time-sharing computers over alternative transmission systems, such as UUCP and IBM's VNET email system. Email could be passed this way between a number of networks, including ARPANET , BITNET and NSFNET, as well as to hosts connected directly to other sites via UUCP. See the history of SMTP protocol.
