Ebook: How the Internet happened from Netscape to the iPhone

"Tech-guru Brian McCullough delivers a rollicking history of the internet, why it exploded, and how it changed everything. The internet was never intended for you, opines Brian McCullough in this lively narrative of an era that utterly transformed everything we thought we knew about technology. In How the Internet Happened, he chronicles the whole fascinating story for the first time, beginning in a dusty Illinois basement in 1993, when a group of college kids set off a once-in-an-epoch revolution with what would become the first "dotcom." Depicting the lives of now-famous innovators like Netscape's Marc Andreessen and Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg, McCullough also reveals surprising quirks and unknown tales as he tracks both the technology and the culture around the internet's rise. Cinematic in detail and unprecedented in scope, the result both enlightens and informs as it draws back the curtain on the new rhythm of disruption and innovation the internet fostered, and helps to redefine an era that changed every part of our lives";The big bang : the Mosaic web browser and Netscape -- Bill Gates "gets" the Internet : Microsoft and Internet Explorer -- America, online : AOL and the early online services -- Big media's big web adventure : Pathfinder, HotWired and ads -- Hello, world : the early search engines and Yahoo -- Get big fast : Amazon.com and the birth of ecommerce -- Trusting strangers : eBay, community sites and portals -- Blowing bubbles : the dot-com era -- Irrational exuberance : the dot-com bubble -- Pop! : Netscape vs. Microsoft, AOL + Time Warner and the nuclear winter -- I'm feeling lucky : Google, Napster and the rebirth -- Rip, mix, burn : the iPod, iTunes, and Netflix -- A thousand flowers, blooming : PayPal, AdWords, Google's IPO and blogs -- Web 2.0 : Wikipedia, YouTube and the wisdom of crowds -- The social network : Facebook -- The rise of mobile : Palm, BlackBerry and smartphones -- One more thing : the iPhone.