In 1962, J.C.R. Licklider proposed a sort of proto internet during the Cold War, to keep communications open in the event of an attack. This became what was known as the ARPA Network, or ARPAnet. As technological breakthroughs happened, ARPAnet grew. Data transmission was achieved in 1965 with packet switching, transitioned to TCP in 1983, then launched the National Science Foundation Network in 1985, where it started spreading to universities and businesses. The NSFNET eventually took over completely as ARPAnet was phased out in 1990. In 1989, Tim Berners-Lee created the hypertext transfer protocol, or http, which became the standard for accessing internet websites. In 1993, the National Center for Supercomputing Applications created the Mosaic Web Browser, the first “modern” browser that we’d be familiar with today.

References

Fitzpatrick, T. (2017, February 9). A brief history of the internet. Retrieved from Science Node: https://sciencenode.org/feature/a-brief-history-of-the-internet-.php

This is an example post, originally published as part of Blogging University. Enroll in one of our ten programs, and start your blog right.

You’re going to publish a post today. Don’t worry about how your blog looks. Don’t worry if you haven’t given it a name yet, or you’re feeling overwhelmed. Just click the “New Post” button, and tell us why you’re here.

Why do this?

• Because it gives new readers context. What are you about? Why should they read your blog?
• Because it will help you focus you own ideas about your blog and what you’d like to do with it.

The post can be short or long, a personal intro to your life or a bloggy mission statement, a manifesto for the future or a simple outline of your the types of things you hope to publish.

To help you get started, here are a few questions:

• Why are you blogging publicly, rather than keeping a personal journal?
• What topics do you think you’ll write about?
• Who would you love to connect with via your blog?
• If you blog successfully throughout the next year, what would you hope to have accomplished?

You’re not locked into any of this; one of the wonderful things about blogs is how they constantly evolve as we learn, grow, and interact with one another — but it’s good to know where and why you started, and articulating your goals may just give you a few other post ideas.

Can’t think how to get started? Just write the first thing that pops into your head. Anne Lamott, author of a book on writing we love, says that you need to give yourself permission to write a “crappy first draft”. Anne makes a great point — just start writing, and worry about editing it later.

When you’re ready to publish, give your post three to five tags that describe your blog’s focus — writing, photography, fiction, parenting, food, cars, movies, sports, whatever. These tags will help others who care about your topics find you in the Reader. Make sure one of the tags is “zerotohero,” so other new bloggers can find you, too.