World Wide Web — Bunk History

At the New York Public Library, 15 December 2004.

The Birth of Our System for Describing Web Content

Over a weekend in 1995, a small group gathered in Ohio to unleash the power of the internet by making it navigable.

by Monica Westin via Aeon on February 22, 2024

A man surfs the web on an early box-computer which emits neon green light

How Corporations Tried—And Failed—To Control the Spread of Content Online

The recent history of copyright in music cannot be separated from the rise of technologies for the recording and transmission of content online.

by David Bellos, Alexandre Montagu via Literary Hub on February 8, 2024

America Online: A Cautionary Tale

On the rise and fall of the quintessential ’90s online service provider—and a warning about today’s social-media giants.

by Joanne McNeil via The Nation on December 15, 2022

The Man Who Created the World Wide Web Has Some Regrets

Tim Berners-Lee has seen his creation debased by everything from fake news to mass surveillance. But he’s got a plan to fix it.

by Katrina Brooker via Vanity Fair on July 1, 2018

Samuel Pepys, by John Hayls, 1666.

Peeping on Pepys

For more than two decades, a community of committed internet users has been chewing over the famous Londoner’s diary.

by Caroline Wazer via HNN on June 11, 2024

Skyscraper construction workers at lunch photo, but sitting atop a web search bar.

Social Media Is Not What Killed the Web

Better browsers made things worse.

by Ian Bogost via The Atlantic on March 25, 2024

Kara Swisher wearing headphones and writing in a notebook near a computer.

Over Three Decades, Tech Obliterated Media

A front-row seat to a slow-moving catastrophe. How tech both helps and hurts our world.

by Kara Swisher via Intelligencer on February 7, 2024

William F. Buckley Jr.

The Evolution of Conservative Journalism

From Bill Buckley to our 24/7 media circus.

by Johnny Miller via National Review on October 12, 2023

Digital Queers: How Computers Transformed LGBTQ Life in the United States

Digital communications allowed transgender individuals and organizations the digital tools to organize and connect at a previously impossible scale and speed.

by Avery Dame-Griff via Process: A Blog for American History on June 29, 2023

A meme, entitled The Many Faces of Generation X, showing stills of a girl from a movie called The Breakfast Club.

The Constructive Culture of Gen X Cynicism

Skepticism drove some of this more cynical or realistic worldview, based on their experiences growing up in the 70s and 80s.

by Mindy Clegg via 3 Quarks Daily on June 5, 2023

Servers at a Facebook data center

Build a Better Internet

An interview with Ben Tarnoff, the author of "Internet for the People: The Fight for Our Digital Future."

by Nick Serpe, Ben Tarnoff via Dissent on June 27, 2022

Picture of a computer.

The Internet Is Rotting

Too much has been lost already. The glue that holds humanity’s knowledge together is coming undone.

by Jonathan Zittrain via The Atlantic on June 30, 2021

"The Wikipedia Story"

An Oral History of Wikipedia, the Web’s Encyclopedia

The definitive story of Wikipedia on its 20th anniversary.

by Tom Roston via OneZero on January 14, 2021

Citizen DJ 2020 Retrospective

The long history of sampling in music, and a new tool that lets artists sample without fear of copyright claims.

by Brian Foo via Citizen DJ on December 31, 2020

Mark Zuckerberg

How the Internet Lost its Soul

After 50 years of networked communications, commercial interests have eclipsed the public good.

by Janet Abbate via Made By History on November 1, 2019

Illustrated figures sit inside a pink triangle embedded with gender markers.

An Oral History of the Early Trans Internet

Trans people have existed since the dawn of time. The internet has not.

by Henry Giardina via Gizmodo on July 9, 2019

The Interface Message Processor that connected UCLA to ARPANET.

Communication Revolution

ARPANET and the development of the internet, 50 years later.

by Zoë Jackson via Perspectives on History on May 14, 2019

Internet Archive servers.

Data Overload

How will the historians of the future manage the massive archival data our society has begun to compile on the internet?

by Seth Denbo via Perspectives on History on May 7, 2019

Douglas Engelbart wearing an earpiece, sitting at a computer, in 1968.

The Future, Revisited: “The Mother of All Demos” at 50

How the ’60s counterculture gave birth to personal computers and the vast tech industry that builds and sells them.

by Andy Horowitz via Los Angeles Review of Books on December 8, 2018

Library card catalog.

To Preserve Their Work — and Drafts of History — Journalists Take Archiving Into Their Own Hands

From loading up the Wayback Machine to 72 hours of scraping, journalists are doing what they can to keep their clips when websites go dark.

by Hanaa' Tameez via Nieman Lab on July 31, 2024

Image of a woman sitting in front of the computer

The Intimate and Interconnected History of the Internet

A new book offers a picture of an early Internet defined by community, experimentation, and lack of privacy.

by Kevin Driscoll, Jacob Bruggeman via The Nation on October 14, 2022

Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg on stage giving a presentation below a screen showing pictures of people connected by the Facebook network.

How Capitalism—Not a Few Bad Actors—Destroyed the Internet

Twenty-five years of neoliberal political economy are to blame for today's regime of surveillance advertising, and only public policy can undo it.

by Matthew Crain via Boston Review on August 3, 2022

Bitcoin Dreams

The pitfalls and the potential of cryptocurrency are explored in three recent publications.

by Kevin Werbach via Los Angeles Review of Books on August 20, 2019

The logout screen for "The Cave," the author's 1990s-era bulletin board system.

The Lost Civilization of Dial-Up Bulletin Board Systems

A former systems operator logs back in to the original computer-based social network.

by Benj Edwards via The Atlantic on November 4, 2016

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