The evolution of the internet

The first network (called Arpanet) had 4 computers connected to it. That was 1969. In 1971, the year of the first email message, the network had grown to 23 hosts.

In 1983, the various hosts switched over to the internet protocols we use today. All 562 of them. In 1988, the year IRC was born, there were 56,000 computers online.

I got online in 1994, when there were only 3,864,000 other internet hosts. When blogs started in 1997, that number was at 19,540,000. In 2001, the birth of Wikipedia saw 125,888,197 computers online. Facebook and Gmail came aboard in 2004 and the internet had grown to 317,646,084 computers.

In July of this year (2009), there were 681,064,561 connected hosts online. Finland passed a law making broadband internet connectivity a basic human right.

Think back to the day you graduated high school. Imagine if someone told you that some day, you'd be sitting in front of a computer no bigger than Saturday's newspaper, looking at a navigable panoramic picture of the neighbourhood you grew up in. Oh yeah..... and view endless pictures of Lolcats.