Vannevar Bush was an American inventor who worked on a machine called the differential analyzer that was capable of solving first order differential equation. Bush also theorized about a device called the memex that would be capable of storing referential knowledge in an encyclopedic manner. Bush was also the director of the Scientific Research and Development and coordinated research between Harvard and Berkeley that led to the creation of ARPA (Advanced Research project agency) and eventually DARPA.

By the 1960s the Department of Defense’s program was working on creating network-to-network protocol that would allow computers to communicate with one another. The new protocol was known as the TCP, which details how information is broken into packets, and IP, which focuses on sending the packets across the network. Although some computers connected with each other, Tim Berners-Lee created a system for universal communication using a URL accessible through HTTP formatted in HTML. Since the technical terms are not necessary for the story, the essay summarizes its purpose: “Browsers are used to connect to remote computers over the Internet and to request, retrieve and display the web pages on the local machine” (O’Regan 169).

Many may wonder why O’Regan may have included a section regarding business models in a chapter about the history of the internet. However, it is essential to see how the World Wide Web changed so much about how business was conducted, as it has had a profound influence on how the internet influences society today. While the World Wide Web grew at a staggering pace, creating many financial successes, it is crucial to acknowledge the mess it produced as a result of the dot-com bubble. O’Regan two main issues of this era that lead to the subsequent downfall of many companies. The first was the fact that many companies had deeply unsound business models (the article discusses how a good business model with a bad idea can be more beneficial than a flawed business model and even the best of ideas), and the share price of stocks were severely inflated, as companies values were examined based on “potential future earnings.” Thus, while we recognize that the World Wide Web has paved the way for a “new economy,” it is important to acknowledge the various occurrences as a result of this significant change.

Sean: 1st paragraph  | Luis: 2nd paragraph  | Kate: 3rd paragraph & post