The History of the Web

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The Dot-com surge

Published: June 20, 2023

As the dot-com hype began to rise, entrepreneurs and ordinary investors got swept up in the fervor.

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From the valley to the alley

Published: May 24, 2023

The Flatiron building is one of the most instantly recognizable buildings in New York City. Built at the beginning of […]

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Dot-Com Part 1: Burning up

Published: March 24, 2023

Chapter 11: Dot-Com is live! Part 1 at least. I’m going to be sending out this chapter over the next couple […]

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AJAX without the X: The History of JSON

Published: December 13, 2022

The history of JSON is the history of the people that created it, and what they set out to do with the software they wrote.

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“Playboy’s body with the New Yorker’s brain”

Published: November 8, 2022

On the early web, some content pioneers experimented with interactive, community-fed, literate smut.

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It’s Time to Pay the Meter

Published: September 20, 2022

News used to be behind a paywall, or not. But then a publication figured out how to do both.

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Spiderwoman, Wise-Women: Listservs to connect

Published: July 19, 2022

Way before social media, listservs acted as a glue that held the web community together.

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Gowalla, Foursquare and the (very) brief history of the Location Wars

Published: June 21, 2022

When the iPhone was released, two apps rushed to market in a battle over geolocation that would come to be briefly known as the “location wars”

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The Long Tail of Uselessness

Published: March 22, 2022

When Paul Phillips the web is at its best when its being useless he did the only thing he could think of. He built his own useless site to catalog it.

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21st Century Community

Published: February 1, 2022

In 1999, the word “community” took on a new meaning on the web. One that would have a lasting impact for years to come.

Standards

Giving Web Standards a Seat at the Table

Published: January 19, 2022

In 2007, the web standards project entered the scene once more to push Microsoft to build its most standards-compliant browser to date.

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Web Components Before Web Components

Published: January 4, 2022

A decade before modern day web components, Microsoft had already hit on a formula for their success.

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The History of the Web is a project by Jay Hoffmann. Get in touch or Follow me on Mastodon.