Internet

From xyclopedia - the history of pornography and sexual expression

The development of viable personal computers in the early 1980's started the revolution we enjoy today. Color monitors with improved screen resolution and greater graphics capabilities coincided with the development of File Transfer Protocols, which allowed files to be transferred between computers using a remarkable piece of hardware called a modem. Despite the fact that the early modems were slow, and the transfer of large files over long distance lines was expensive, the earliest computer bulletin boards were a huge success. The Bulletin Board Services (BBS's) became a repository for large numbers of explicit images scanned in by willing contributors.

In 1989 a computer scientist named Timothy Berners-Lee created a set of protocols for linking documents that would allow personal computers to talk to each other. He called it HTML, or Hyper Text Markup Language and it was the single most important milestone on the road to the World Wide Web. Because of the need to be able to move around between and inside a website, browsers appeared in 1991. Then came Mosaic, a browser that allowed more than one type of information to appear on the screen at the same time, combining graphics, text color and sound.

The need to broaden the reach of the Net became quickly apparent. Universities and governments operated the first servers and access to the Web was very limited. Soon more and more commercial servers opened up, allowing customers with PCs to access other PCs via the growing Net.

In 1994 the development and mass marketing of Netscape Navigator boosted the number of Internet users to 2 million. Individuals and businesses began realizing the potential of the Internet and started setting up their own sites. In the mid to late nineties, Internet traffic grew exponentially.

By the late 1990's large and small advertisers were spending billions a year on Internet advertising. Advertising of adult sites represented a significant percentage of that amount, demonstrating the economic potential of the Net. Pornographers made early use of online shopping mechanisms such as catalogues and credit card use, monthly site fees and provision of extensive free material as a lure for potential customers. In just a few years years, the Internet changed the way we all interact with the world.