How the Internet Happened

August 15, 2018
The internet was not meant for the likes of us--and yet we have it, through means that tech historian McCullough capably recounts in this wide-ranging history of the internet era.It wasn't so long ago that technologists dismissed the thought that ordinary mortals would have a use for a computer and not so long ago that the internet was a skeletal version of its present self, confined to computers administered by the military-industrial complex. Chalk the change up, writes the author, to the opening of the net to civilian traffic--and then to techies at the University of Illinois who, building on earlier platforms, launched the first browser in 1993, early on called X Mosaic "because it was designed to work with X Window, a graphical user interface popular with users of Unix machines." If any of the terms in the preceding clause are mysterious, then this book may prove tough slogging, but it has plenty of odd drama. For example, Bill Gates came calling on what later became Netscape, hoping to build an alliance; when rebuffed, he retooled Microsoft in order to build a browser of its own, having quickly divined how important the internet would become. McCullough's story is populated by numerous geeky heroes, notable among them Steve Jobs but most far less familiar, along with some free-riders and businesspeople who realized that the internet's free gift to the world was something that could be turned into a cash cow. Writes the author, "the Internet might have been launched in Silicon Valley, but to a large extent, it was monetized by startups in New York City." Most of the individual components of McCullough's story, which closes with the arrival of the "completely, conceptually perfect" iPhone in 2007, are well-documented, but few other histories of modern technology connect them so fluently. In this, the narrative resembles Steven Levy's by now ancient Hackers (1984) and John Markoff's more recent What the Dormouse Said (2005); it compares favorably to both.A tasty, educational treat for tech heads and other web denizens.

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September 1, 2018

The main takeaway in McCullough's first book is to value changing consumer expectations on the participatory web. He builds a detailed and highly insightful overview of the influencers and ideas that have shaped the everyday technologies we take for granted, showing how the Internet has infiltrated our homes and lives to the degree it is today. Covering developments between 1993 and 2008, McCullough draws from his oral history podcast and lived experiences to share stories about how everyday online terms were born, and how innovations such as virtual shopping carts and recommender systems evolved from developers striving to meet changing consumer expectations. Most surprising is the elaboration of simple, obvious ideas to solve consumer problems that gave rise to giants like eBay, Yahoo, Hotmail, or Paypal. McCullough's nonlinear, weblike organization of chapters keeps the narrative flowing but also makes one wish for a dashboard to maintain context. VERDICT Tech enthusiasts and students of business, marketing, and ecommerce will benefit from the detailed chronicling of the early Internet days. Readers will delight in being reminded of long-forgotten platforms and in understanding how Internet evangelists, Wall Street, and the moneyed elite have shaped our online lives.--Nancy Marksbury, Keuka Coll., Keuka Park, NY

Copyright 2018 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

September 1, 2018
These days, with instant online connections available on everything from our cell phones to smart refrigerators featuring built-in grocery lists, most of us blithely take the Internet for granted. Expanding on his Internet History Podcast, tech start-up expert McCullough provides readers with many good reasons to look back in amazement on the evolution of the web from slow-as-molasses dial-up email exchanges to blazingly fast access to film libraries and newspaper archives. With such chapters as The Big Bang and Blowing Bubbles, respectively showcasing the breakthroughs of pioneering web browsers like Netscape in the early 1990s and the precipitous inflation and detonation of the dot.com bubble, McCullough traces the dizzying transformations society underwent when entrepreneurs, including Marc Andreessen, put the connective power of the world wide web, once the chief domain of government agents and academics, into the hands of ordinary users. Along with profiling the internet's key players, from Bill Gates to Mark Zuckerberg, McCullough provides an entertaining and informative technological history which computer geeks and readers interested in everything from sociology to business and media will relish.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.)