How we got here

The Fathers of the Internet Revolution Urge Today’s Software Engineers to Reinvent the Web

Tim Berners-Lee, Vint Cerf, and other Internet pioneers issue a challenge on a day that just might go down in tech history

TIME Magazine Cover: Computer in Society - Apr. 2, 1965

TIME Magazine Cover: Computer in Society

Part I: The Next Great Online Community

There’s a lack of innovation in community software. Let's dive into internet history, and get inspired!

A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace

by John Perry Barlow Governments of the Industrial World, you weary giants of flesh and steel, I come from Cyberspace, the new home of Mind. On behalf of the future, I ask you of the past to leave us

The rise of Whatever

This was originally titled “I miss when computers were fun”. But in the course of writing it, I discovered that there is a reason computers became less fun, a dark thread woven through a number of events in recent history. Let me back up a bit.

Humanities in the Machine - Blain Smith

There is something quietly remarkable about the people who built the foundations of modern computing. Not their technical achievements, though those are extraordinary. What is remarkable is where they came from before they ever touched a machine.

Computer: A History of the Information Machine

Computer: A History of the Information Machine is a history of computing written by Martin Campbell-Kelly and William Aspray first published in 1996. It follows the history of "information machines" from Charles Babbage's difference engine through Herman Hollerith's tabulating machines to the invention of the modern electronic digital computer. A revised 2nd edition published in 2004 included new material on the Internet and World Wide Web, while the updated 3rd edition published in 2013 includes contributions from historians Nathan Ensmenger and Jeffrey Yost. The 3rd edition extends the story to include recent phenomena such as social networking and revises the discussion of early history to reflect new insights from the literature.

Historical pragmatism and the internet

This article argues that the literature describing the internet revolution in the 1990s was characterized by the rhetoric of the technological sublime. This rhetoric suffered from three fatal flaws: (1) it was not sufficiently grounded in the historical development of technology; (2) it viewed the internet in isolation, failing to consider the wider technological context; and (3) it failed to examine the internet in view of the social, economic, religious and political circumstances of its users. Several examples from history are cited, demonstrating that changes in various systems for the production, dissemination and preservation of cultural information both border and deborder the world. The article suggests that if internet researchers take a pragmatic, historically grounded approach, they will discover that the introduction of internet technology can be seen to have similar consequences. While the technology overcomes many boundaries (of space and time, politics and economics), other social borders may be created at the same time. It is easier to see old boundaries coming down than to see new ones being erected. Rather than being swept by utopian or dystopian enthusiasms, the article insists that the really interesting discoveries are to be made in locating the subtle social shifts taking place, relatively unnoticed, as a consequence of technological change.

Rebuilding the Web We Lost - Anil Dash

A blog about making culture. Since 1999.

A world without Caesars: How the ATProto community is rebuilding the web to return power to the people | TechCrunch

The first in-person gathering devoted to those building with the AT Protocol — which powers Bluesky — was held in Seattle.

A world without Caesars: How the ATProto community is rebuilding the web to return power to the people | TechCrunch

The first in-person gathering devoted to those building with the AT Protocol — which powers Bluesky — was held in Seattle.

My journey to the heart of the forgotten internet

Slowly but surely, huge swaths of the internet are vanishing. But the artefacts of the early web are still out there, and they have lessons for the future.

we were online

Turn the internet into a living, shared space with real-time traces of people browsing.

Announcing Aster - a home for researchers on the open web - Aster Blog

In 1989, the internet was invented to help researchers at CERN more easily share ideas and communicate. The incredible growth of the internet that came after…