The History of the Web

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Weblogs

November 2020 Weblog: Weird Web, Independent Web

Published: November 24, 2020

Chapter 5 of my series is out now, so make sure to get caught up! Plus, the weird web of the past and the independent web of the future.

Weblogs

October 2020 Weblog: Finding the Web and Making Your Place

Published: October 28, 2020

This month, making a website has never been this easy. Understanding the web, however, is another story

Weblogs

September 2020 Weblog: Own Your Stuff, Learn About Fanfic

Published: September 29, 2020

If you’ve been following along with my series on CSS Tricks, well now you can listen to all of that great history, narrated by Jeremy Keith.

Features

Sorry Computer, You’re Not a Teapot

Published: November 19, 2019

You are reading this somewhere. On your laptop or on your phone or in your email or RSS reader. If […]

The Right to Link

Published: May 18, 2021

You can link to anything on the web. That’s a strength. And yet the right to link has been dragged into court on a regular basis for decades. Why is that?

We Made These Sites for Kids?

Published: November 16, 2021

From Yahooligans! to Club Penguin, the kinds of sites we made for kids on the early web were a bit unsteady, but formative and fun for the first web generation.

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.

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.

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”

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.

Features

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.

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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The History of the Web is a project by Jay Hoffmann. Get in touch.