The History of Web Hosting
Prior to 1991 web hosting as we know it did not in fact, exist. In fact prior to 1991 the internet did not exist. The internet as we know it today contains over 50 million websites, all of which are web hosted. Without these websites, what would one search for on the internet? For the internet to have flourished like it has today, websites and more importantly, web hosting, have both been required in order to have transformed the world of communications. And to have created the Internet as we know it in modern times. Web hosting history and at a greater level, the Internet has spawned one of the biggest technological revolutions, arguably more impactful than the inventions of the radio and television.
The history of web hosting
But where did the history of web hosting start? The original idea of the internet was attributed to a gentleman by the name of J.C.R Licklider who nearly 50 years ago wrote a number of papers in which he envisioned a broad network of connected computers where data and information in general, could be accessed. Licklider headed up the Advance Research Projects Agency located at MIT where he promoted the idea of a computer network, the facilitation requirements for web hosting, to his bosses.
Thomas Merril and Lawrence Roberts invented the first computer in 1965. And in 1969 they helped invent the first computer network linking computers located at the University of California, the University of Utah and the Stanford Research Institute. These were the first ‘web hosts’ and in the following years they would go on to add a following 19 more hosts and 13 different nodes to their small network.
Later that decade the creation of TELENET occurred which formed the basis for the first commercial Internet service provider or an ISP. Over the next 15 years saw a massive increase in the development of the soon to be network that of the Internet. In 1991 the National Science Foundation thought it best to lift the commercial restrictions on the Internet which allowed budding entrepreneurs to believe there could be future profits to be made particularly in the fields of web hosting and commerce. Web Hosting history had begun well and truly.
The Internet transformed into an entity of itself, were university professors and developers started to believe that the Internet could provide an unparalleled amount of value to those that sought both knowledge and commerce. It became no longer a network for computer tech heads, but businesses and individuals who started to see the viability for commercial endeavors.
Web pages and websites began to pop up, with web hosting providers beginning to advertise and promote their viability to those that sought innovation by providing their services or information on the World Wide Web. Web Hosting was still quite expensive at this point as most people were beginning only just to accept the technology and commercial viability. In recent times, web hosting has become quite cheap and inexpensive which has allowed the masses to jump on board and help create the 50 or so million websites that now exist. The web hosting history is a long one, but it has helped the Internet rise to where it has today.