The internet

Google The world’s most popular search engine was invented in 1998 by Larry Page and Sergey Brin in a garage in Menlo Park, California.

NORTH AMERICA

Twitter

This “microblog” site lets users post short messages, or tweets, for anyone to read. The first tweet, by site creator Jack Dorsey in 2006, read “just setting up my twttr.” ARPAnet The first message on the

ARPAnet was sent from UCLA (University of California, Los Angeles) to Stanford University, in 1969. The system was set up and used by universities and government departments.

BBN and Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts Stanford University and Menlo Park, California

UCLA, Los Angeles Virginia

1969– present The internet

The internet is a vast network that allows computers (including phones, tablets, and other mobile devices) to share information. This idea was first suggested in 1962 and called the “Intergalactic Computer Network,” but the first actual network, called ARPAnet, was set up in 1969. This became part of the internet in 1983.

Facebook This social networking site was created in 2004 by Harvard student Mark Zuckerberg.

International ARPAnet In 1973, the first international connection linked London to the ARPAnet at UCLA via Kjeller, Norway, and Virginia.

Webcam In 1991, the first online video camera was used in the computer science lab at Cambridge University, UK, to check if there was Email coffee left in the pot. The first email was devised and sent by Ray Tomlinson in 1971 at the technology company BBN.

Cambridge

CERN

EUROPE

SOUTH AMERICA

World Wide Web Invented by Tim Berners-Lee at the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN) in 1989, the “Web” went global in 1991.

KEY The shading shows when 25 percent or more of a country’s population is connected to the internet. 1998 or before 1999–2000 2001–02 2003–04 2005–06 2007–08 2009–10 2011–12 Under 25 percent No data First international ARPAnet connection

Skype Launched in 2003, this “voice-over-internet” system lets people make audio and video calls.

Yandex Russia’s biggest search engine was launched in Moscow in 1997.

Moscow

ASIA

Baidu China’s biggest search engine was invented by Robin Li and Eric Xu in 2000.

AFRICA

Beijing

Shenzhen Seoul Broadband In 2005, South Korea was the first country to convert completely to broadband—the technology that allows fast transfer of multiple types of internet data at once. The nation is still the world leader in internet connection speeds.

Tencent Launched in 1999, this is China’s most popular social networking site.

“We are still in the very beginnings of the internet. Let’s use it wisely.”

Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia, 2009

AUSTRALASIA

The World Wide Web

There are many uses for the internet, such as email, online gaming, and online chat, but the most common use is the World Wide Web (or “Web”). This is a system of pages of data (Web pages) connected by hyperlinks (links that take the reader to more, related information on other pages). There were 1 trillion pages of Web content by 2008. Search engines help readers by scouring the Web for any word or phrase entered.

Inventor Tim Berners-Lee shows the first Web server on the World Wide Web’s 20th birthday.