Killer Applications

But, even though those features were popular with techies, average users still found them cryptic and nearly unusable. This all changed with the invention of the World Wide Web in the early 1990's--it provides an easy-to-use, clickable, graphical interface to all the rich features of the Internet. In a few short years, it has created a whole new industry, and radically transformed older industries where every business wants its own home page.

The problem is now that everyone wants to get on and surf the Web, it's not clear that the Internet can handle all these millions and millions of new users. No doubt there will have to be major construction.

The creators of the Internet thought that the biggest advantage of a computer network was to share valuable computer resources. For example, a professor at MIT could log into a computer at UCLA (using Telnet) to do calculations before the Californians even woke up! They also thought it would be a great way to move around information using FTP, the File Transfer Protocol.

These applications were very useful, but other features became even more popular. People found this new network was an excellent way to communicate--they established Newsgroups, Chat, as well as the killer application of the Internet's first 25 years, Email.