The History of the Web

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Trying (and Failing) to be Cool

Published: April 20, 2021

The web’s turn into commercial may have happened quickly—it was largely complete by the end of the 1990’s—but that doesn’t mean it didn’t take a turn into the weird here and there. Case and point: Zima.

Site Spotlight

Hot Hot Hot Sauce

Published: September 1, 2020

When they opened their door to the public in the early 1990’s, Hot Hot Hot had over 320 hot sauce […]

Sidenotes

CaringBridge: A Community Grown with Love

Published: November 5, 2019

Web communities started small, and many began with purpose. They radiated out from a single source, spread through close-knit circles […]

Sidenotes

The Tech: The First Newspaper published online

Published: August 20, 2018

The first newspaper published online is not what you think. It began with the smallest of steps, when a group of students chose to experiment with the web.

Sidenotes

The First Thing That Ever Sold Online Was Pizza

Published: July 30, 2018

If you happened to live in Santa Cruz in 1994 you could sit down at your computer, open up your […]

Sidenotes

Chabad-Lubavitch in Cyberspace

Published: March 20, 2018

”When you go to the Internet and you read about Judaism, you go straight to the intellect and the stereotypes […]

Sidenotes

The Web’s Youngest Teacher

Published: February 1, 2018

If it was 1999, and you needed to learn to code, 13 year old Alyssa Daniels was there to help.

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