Before the Internet was actually the Internet, it was called ARPAnet. ARPA-Who? Yes, it's a funny sounding name for sure. Especially considering what the Internet is today, literally encompassing every aspect of our lives. ARPAnet is an acronym for Advanced Research Projects Agency Network. In the late 1960s, The Advanced Research Projects Agency and the Department of Defense set out on a mission. They were trying to find a way to simplify communication and share data, but not using the old telephone method of 'circuit switching' to transfer voice and data communications. That method was only able to send from one to another in a linear fashion - from end to end.

The ARPAnet once set up, as rudimentary as it was in the beginning (late 70's, early ardbeg 's) used packet switching which enabled the sending and receiving of communication and data to multiple locations. Thus, TCP/IP communication protocols were born. You can probably thank Robert Kahn and Vint Cerf, often referred to as the Father of the Internet, for that. What started out as a defense project quickly expanded to the National Science Foundation (NSF) and academia - which allowed the sharing of information in real time. In 1989 ARPAnet was shut down, replaced by NSFnet.

First Commercial Use of the Internet

The first public and commercial use of the Internet came when in mid-1989 when Compuserve and MCImail added email service for anyone who wanted it. Next, PSInet setup a commercial section to the Internet backbone. Then by the end of 1990 Tim Berners-Lee came up with HyperText Transfer Protocols, and that should sound very familiar to everyone; HTTP. Next came; HTML, UseNet, and FTP (File Transfer Protocol). The Internet was up and running, and only in their wildest dreams would they have imagined that today just over 4 Billion people are now connected online across the globe - soon everyone will be connected and their lives affected in some way.

The Internet Has Changed the Way We Do Business Forever

Before the Internet, businesses were using fax machines, Federal Express package delivery and Zap Mail, Snail Mail (USPS), and very limited data transfer with Alpha Pagers (very brief text messages for which you could answer Y or N for yes or no). At that time people were upset with Junk Fax advertising, little did they know the future of SPAM was going to take a big bite out of that nonsense - albeit, only to make it a 1,000 times worse. Before SPAM blockers, users wore the letters off the "delete" key within a month after buying a new computer.

The Internet sped up the flow of information and the speed of business to the point that in 1999 Bill Gates wrote a book; Business @ The Speed of Thought. Of course, by the mid-1990s nearly every legitimate business, big and small, either had or was building a website. Why not have an online brochure available 24/7 without having to print and mail out information to potential customers? Yes, the printing industry suffered, print shops across the nation were going out of business, almost as fast as the film-developing sector disappeared with the advent of digital cameras.