The Evolution of the Internet
The degree of emphasis placed on the history of the Internet will depend on the instructor’s interests and approach. At a minimum, it is important for students to understand that the Internet is not a recent phenomenon, and that it went through a number of discernable stages over the last fifty-plus years. The infographic on which Figure 1.1 is based is interesting and informative: http://socialmediagraphics.posterous.com/the-history-of-the-internet.
If you want more information, the Internet Timeline is hugely informative
http://www.zakon.org/robert/internet/timeline/#1950s, with some good graphs at the end, and can be used in the classroom. Another interesting site is Live Internet http://www.livinginternet.com, which is an incredibly rich resource for Internet history.
Throughout the text, if you want to provide some historical context, you might find the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine interesting: http://www.archive.org/web/web.php. It is particularly useful if you want to show the evolution of some of the major websites.
The main thing students need to realize is that the Internet was not originally a commercial medium. That helps to explain some of the inherent tensions that still exist in the medium. Current events can often help to illustrate the point. As this is written SOPA has gone away for the moment, but you can expect continuing issues that concern the governance of the Internet itself and the impact it has on particular industries and consumer segments.
It is also good to focus students on the section about the Internet bubble. Visuals like the eToys website http://wayback.archive.org/web/*/http://etoys.com or the Pets.com sock puppet are readily available if you want to illustrate the point. Here the key point is economic sustainability, which neither of these sites had in the early days of the Internet. Students should think about the fact that there are successful toy sites now (they understand the virtues of cost control and efficient fulfillment of customer orders) and pet product, which tend to be focused on the higher-margin supplies and medicines. This kind of thinking provides a good foundation for the Chapter 3 discussion of business models.
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