Written on September 16, 2008 – 9:26 am
Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten, Serial Internet Entrepreneur
This is a photo of the very first Web Server. It was used by Tim Berners-Lee (Sir Timothy John Berners-Lee actually) while he worked at CERN. As you can see the first web server was a NeXT box. NeXT was a company founded by Steve Jobs after he left Apple. The company never took off and was acquired by Apple when they were looking for a new operating system. The first web browser, developed by Berners-Lee was called WorldWideWeb and was developed on NeXTSTEP, the NeXT development toolset.
They (Herb Brody) say that telling the future by looking at the past assumes that conditions remain constant. This is like driving a car by looking in the rearview mirror. But I still think it is good to look back on how things got started and where they ended up since then. The first website was put online in August 1991. Just think about how much has happened since then and try to imagine how much we can expect from the next 17 years…
I hope you like that post!
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Written on May 19, 2008 – 2:38 pm
Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten, Serial Internet Entrepreneur
According to research firm Parks Associates roughly one-fifth of all U.S. households are disconnected from the Internet and have never used e-mail. Apparently they called 20 million households and asked them if they had Internet Access. (Had they gone door to door that number would have been way higher as I can imagine that a high percentage of people that don’t have a phone in their houses also don’t have Internet.)
John Barrett, director of research at Parks Associates is quoted:
“Nearly one out of three household heads has never used a computer to create a document. These data underscore the significant digital divide between the connected majority and the homes in the unconnected minority that rarely, if ever, use a computer. Many people just don’t see a reason to use computers and do not associate technology with the needs and demands of their daily lives”
There is hope though as 7 percent of the 20 million disconnected homes plan to get connected within the next 12 months.
Werner Vogels at The Next Web Conference 2008
Last Friday we had dinner with Werner Vogels, CTO Amazon, who told us how dangerous it is to ignore users who still use 800×600. One guest said “It is just too much work to design your website in such a way that it works on all resolutions. You should just ignore the older browsers and systems and make sure everything works for 98% of your users”.
Vogels replied that Amazon currently has over 80 million members, that lots of those come to the service because of its low pricing. Many Amazon customers are very price aware and that Amazon is also attractive for customers with lower incomes. If he would ignore even a few percent of his customers that would come down to millions of disappointed users.
When you are surrounded by geeks and early adopters it is easy to forget that not everybody own the latest MacBook Pro, a speedy broadband connection and a 23 inch monitor. We are very focused on what the Next Web will look like and are always looking ahead. Just remember that sometimes it pays to look back a bit too…
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The Next Web Blog is closely associated with The Next Web Conference which is held annually in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. At this event speakers from all over the world come together to talk about, and show of, the future of the Web. (
