One of the things about history is that it is ongoing. That is not only because of new events, but also because of the reinterpretation of old events. Many of the Internet History articles we found were a little old, late 90s to early 00s, and so they miss the last 10 to 15 years of of internet history. Facebook and Youtube, two of the biggest parts of the web today, appeared after many of these articles were written. It’s not the brand names that are important as much as the underlying trends: social networking, streaming video, user generated content.
The early history, what is sometimes called Web 1.0, is significant, but so is the modern history. O’Reilly’s 2005 article on Web 2.0 and his 2009 follow-up might be worth a look.
Tagging
The way I’m calling up the History articles is by going to The Flow and then clicking on a History tag at the end of an article. Most people put multiple tags on their articles, which is an excellent thing. Many of the History articles would also apply to How It Works, since they deal with concepts like TCP/IP, packet switching and decentralization. If an article fits in multiple categories, then tag it as such. Then we can easily refer to it when the other topics come up. More tags means more connections, which gives us a stronger collection of literature.
Sorry about missing class tonight. You wouldn’t have had to worry about catching anything from me, but I’m sure I would have been more of a distraction than an asset.
