Vanity Fair’s July issue contains an excellent piece titled “How the Web Was Won”. It provides an enlightening perspective on the history of the internet and how the web as we know it came to be. What makes the piece particularly unique is its format, a collection of personal accounts by many of the key people who were involved every stage of the internet’s development. While the post does not give any attention to the perhaps more interesting question – where the web is heading today?, I still think it is a must read. In the words of Winston Churchill “the further backward you look, the further forward you can see!”
There are too many good excerpts to post all the highlights, but here are a few teasers if you’re not already convinced to give it a read:
Jeff Bezos: audio commentary
Steve Case: We always believed that people talking to each other was the killer app. And so whether it was instant messaging or chat rooms, which we launched in 1985, or message boards, it was always the community that was front and center. Everything else—commerce and entertainment and financial services—was secondary. We thought community trumped content.
Howard Dean: The Internet is the most important democratizing invention since the printing press, 500 years ago. The Internet is remaking American politics, and the Republicans are in big trouble because of this. American politics is no longer a top-down command-and-control business, which people in Washington can’t get over. But it’s true. If young people want to get something done, they go on the Net. They find out some information. They find an affinity group—or if they don’t have one, they start an affinity group.
Vinod Khosla: Communication always changes society, and society was always organized around communication channels. Two hundred years ago it was mostly rivers. It was sea-lanes and mountain passes. The Internet is another form of communication and commerce. And society organizes around the channels.
