The publication of the first “request for comments,” or RFC, documents paves the way for the birth of the internet. April 7 is often cited as a symbolic birth date of the net because the RFC memoranda contain research, proposals and methodologies applicable to internet technology. RFC documents provide a way for engineers and others to kick around new ideas in a public forum; sometimes, these ideas are adopted as new standards by the Internet Engineering Task Force.
One interesting aspect of the RFC is that each document is issued a unique serial number. An individual paper cannot be overwritten; rather, updates or corrections are submitted on a separate RFC. The result is an ongoing historical record of the evolution of internet standards.
When it comes to the birth of the net, www.historicaltextarchive.com/s/history-of-the-internet.php, also has its supporters. On that date, the National Science Foundation’s university network backbone, a precursor to the World Wide Web, became operational.
April 7 - The Birth of the Internet
Saturday, April 7, 2007 at 9:38 AM Posted by zxmacman
Apple Site Grows Faster than Google
Friday, December 23, 2005 at 9:20 AM Posted by zxmacman
As it turns out, Apple is more popular than everyone's favorite search engine Google - at least in November. The Associated Press reported yesterday the popularity of the iPod and iTunes has resulted in explosive growth for Apple's web site. Amazing. Below is the article:
Apple's Web Site Among Fastest Growing
Thu Dec 22, 8:07 AM ET (AP) - Driven largely by the popularity of the iTunes music service and software, Apple Computer Inc.'s Web site was the fastest growing last month among the major brands, according to a study by Nielsen/NetRatings.
The site drew 30.8 million unique visitors in November, a 57 percent jump from the 19.6 million a year earlier. Google Inc. saw a 29 percent growth in visitors while Amazon.com Inc. had a 16 percent boost.
Yahoo Inc. (Nasdaq:YHOO - news) remained the Web's leading brand with 104 million visitors, a 10 percent increase from November 2004. But among the Web's top 10 brands, Yahoo's growth ranked only seventh.
Comparing all sites with at least 1 million visitors in November, the PhotoBucket photo-sharing site saw the largest growth — a 16-fold increase to 15.6 million visitors, from 983,000 last year.
Social networking sites MySpace and Facebook had the second- and third-highest growth, respectively. Wikipedia, an encyclopedia that lets volunteers add and change entries regardless of their expertise, was ninth on the list, nearly quadrupling its traffic.
Copyright © 2005 The Associated Press.