Autosave: 2024-11-05 15:14:05

neuron/1b27e703-342c-4cda-a280-3c6903424ecd/241fe1a3_the_Web_versus_modem_BBSs.md

@@ -0,0 +1,40 @@
+---
+tags: [world-wide-web, computer-history, internet, bulletin-boards]
+created: Monday, November 04, 2024
+---
+
+# 241fe1a3_the_Web_versus_modem_BBSs
+
+As access to the Web and the demand for public access grew, services like AOL,
+which provided dial-up access to a subset of the broader Internet (along with
+email and chat-rooms) became increasingly redundant.
+
+In response to this, they pivoted in their marketing to presenting their service
+as a safe, curated means of accessing the information: the Web was confusing, it
+was hard to know what was out there and how to find useful information.
+
+By using AOL, you would know which sites to visit for different tasks and which
+of these were reputable. They adopted a kind of friendly gatekeeper persona in
+the era of unhampered and universal access to information that the Web heralded
+and embodied.
+
+(This isn't so strange if we consider that outside of work (and the communities
+of computer enthusiasts), personal computers were still relatively new and
+computers themselves still rather forbidding entities.)
+
+This function of a gateway to the overwhelming content of the web would be taken
+up first by browsers
+([Mosaic's](c301a0b3-1d8_Mosaic_Netscape_and_Browser_Wars.md) landing page would
+list websites for specific sources of information and user tasks and links to
+other directories) and then of course search engines which would allow users to
+search for what they needed against an index (usually a subset) of the Web's
+total content. (Interestingly in this regard, AOL would eventually buy
+Netscape.)
+
+AOL et al made sense when users wanted access to the internet and the web didn't
+yet exist. Different networks had different access criteria and were often
+poorly signposted, accessible only to those in the know. Private commercial
+networks were set up to service typical consumer needs (news, banking, weather
+reports etc) but the whole point of the Web as conceived by TBL was to make
+everything available to anyone who wanted it through a streamlined and universal
+set of protocols.

neuron/1b27e703-342c-4cda-a280-3c6903424ecd/Weaving_the_Web_Berners_Lee.md

@@ -28,4 +28,4 @@ quite a different level from anything that a neuron could be aware
 of...[W]riters have contemplated an 'emergent property' arising from the mass of
 humanity and computers. But remember that such a phenomenon would have its own
 agenda. We would not as individuals be ware of it, let alone control it, any
-more than the neuron controls the brain._ p.222
+more than the neuron controls the brain._ (p.222)

neuron/1b27e703-342c-4cda-a280-3c6903424ecd/c301a0b3-1d8_Mosaic_Netscape_and_Browser_Wars.md

@@ -3,7 +3,7 @@ tags: [world-wide-web, computer-history, Microsoft]
 created: Sunday, November 03, 2024
 ---
 
-# c301a0b3-1d8_Mosaic_Netscape_and_Browser_Wars
+# c301a0b3_Mosaic_Netscape_and_Browser_Wars
 
 The Mosaic browser was conceived and produced at the University of Illinois
 during the very early growth of the Web, when TBL was still at CERN.

neuron/1b27e703-342c-4cda-a280-3c6903424ecd/f6564af9_AOL_and_early_internet_enclosure.md

@@ -1,13 +1,14 @@
 ---
-tags: [world-wide-web, computer-history, internet, socio-political]
+tags:
+  [world-wide-web, computer-history, internet, socio-political, bulletin-boards]
 created: Monday, November 04, 2024
 ---
 
 # f6564af9_AOL_and_early_internet_enclosure
 
-We might view AOL, with it's millions of 'free trial' CD-ROMs, as the first
+We might view AOL, with its ubiquitous 'free trial' CD-ROMs, as the first
 attempt by a corporate entity to try and enclose the Internet/Web. To take the
-vase informational expanse and reduce it to a single, filtered and contained
+vast informational expanse and reduce it to a single, filtered and contained
 space controlled by a single company.
 
 ![Early AOL interface](static/aol-on-windows.jpg)
@@ -28,8 +29,9 @@ at a time when accessing information was opaque and confusing to the average
 non-technical user. The advent of the web first threatened and then basically
 obviated this model, when access to information via browsers and HTTP servers
 made the process easier and more democratized. Hence why AOL then tellingly
-pivoted to the browser and search-engine market, the next available mechanism of
-enclosure.
+pivoted to the browser and search-engine market (purchasing
+[Netscape](c301a0b3-1d8_Mosaic_Netscape_and_Browser_Wars.md) in 1999), the next
+available mechanism of enclosure.
 
 ![AOL homepage](static/aol-original.jpg)
 

neuron/1b27e703-342c-4cda-a280-3c6903424ecd/index.md

@@ -13,28 +13,29 @@ computer science.
 
 ![not-by-ai-badge](static/not-by-ai-alternative--light.svg)
  
-**Build ID:** 942a9988-f5a6-4ae9-be83-000113c8d4f2
+**Build ID:** 1b27e703-342c-4cda-a280-3c6903424ecd
 
-**Published:** Mon 04 Nov 2024 16:36:33
+**Published:** Tue 05 Nov 2024 15:14:03
 
 ### Recent edits 
 
 - [[f6564af9_AOL_and_early_internet_enclosure]] 
-- [[ecec56e6_precursors_to_search_engines]] 
-- [[c301a0b3-1d8_Mosaic_Netscape_and_Browser_Wars]] 
-- [[The_History_of_Computing_Swade]] 
+- [[241fe1a3_the_Web_versus_modem_BBSs]] 
 - [[Weaving_the_Web_Berners_Lee]] 
+- [[c301a0b3-1d8_Mosaic_Netscape_and_Browser_Wars]] 
+- [[ecec56e6_precursors_to_search_engines]] 
+- [[The_History_of_Computing_Swade]] 
 - [[Concise_subfield_mapping_JS]] 
 - [[Additive_identity]] 
 - [[MongoDB_connection]] 
 - [[Commutative_Property_of_Addition_and_Multiplication]] 
 - [[Call_stack]] 
 - [[Typing_built_in_React_hooks]] 
-- [[Boot_process]] 
 
 
-### All notes (485) 
+### All notes (486) 
 
+- [[241fe1a3_the_Web_versus_modem_BBSs]] 
 - [[385af4b4_Baran_distributed_networks]] 
 - [[3f1b9fe5_motivation_Berners_Lee]] 
 - [[4a3dc316_key_figures_ARPANET]] 

zk/241fe1a3_the_Web_versus_modem_BBSs.md

@@ -0,0 +1,40 @@
+---
+tags: [world-wide-web, computer-history, internet, bulletin-boards]
+created: Monday, November 04, 2024
+---
+
+# 241fe1a3_the_Web_versus_modem_BBSs
+
+As access to the Web and the demand for public access grew, services like AOL,
+which provided dial-up access to a subset of the broader Internet (along with
+email and chat-rooms) became increasingly redundant.
+
+In response to this, they pivoted in their marketing to presenting their service
+as a safe, curated means of accessing the information: the Web was confusing, it
+was hard to know what was out there and how to find useful information.
+
+By using AOL, you would know which sites to visit for different tasks and which
+of these were reputable. They adopted a kind of friendly gatekeeper persona in
+the era of unhampered and universal access to information that the Web heralded
+and embodied.
+
+(This isn't so strange if we consider that outside of work (and the communities
+of computer enthusiasts), personal computers were still relatively new and
+computers themselves still rather forbidding entities.)
+
+This function of a gateway to the overwhelming content of the web would be taken
+up first by browsers
+([Mosaic's](c301a0b3-1d8_Mosaic_Netscape_and_Browser_Wars.md) landing page would
+list websites for specific sources of information and user tasks and links to
+other directories) and then of course search engines which would allow users to
+search for what they needed against an index (usually a subset) of the Web's
+total content. (Interestingly in this regard, AOL would eventually buy
+Netscape.)
+
+AOL et al made sense when users wanted access to the internet and the web didn't
+yet exist. Different networks had different access criteria and were often
+poorly signposted, accessible only to those in the know. Private commercial
+networks were set up to service typical consumer needs (news, banking, weather
+reports etc) but the whole point of the Web as conceived by TBL was to make
+everything available to anyone who wanted it through a streamlined and universal
+set of protocols.

zk/Weaving_the_Web_Berners_Lee.md

@@ -28,4 +28,4 @@ quite a different level from anything that a neuron could be aware
 of...[W]riters have contemplated an 'emergent property' arising from the mass of
 humanity and computers. But remember that such a phenomenon would have its own
 agenda. We would not as individuals be ware of it, let alone control it, any
-more than the neuron controls the brain._ p.222
+more than the neuron controls the brain._ (p.222)

zk/c301a0b3-1d8_Mosaic_Netscape_and_Browser_Wars.md

@@ -3,7 +3,7 @@ tags: [world-wide-web, computer-history, Microsoft]
 created: Sunday, November 03, 2024
 ---
 
-# c301a0b3-1d8_Mosaic_Netscape_and_Browser_Wars
+# c301a0b3_Mosaic_Netscape_and_Browser_Wars
 
 The Mosaic browser was conceived and produced at the University of Illinois
 during the very early growth of the Web, when TBL was still at CERN.

zk/f6564af9_AOL_and_early_internet_enclosure.md

@@ -1,13 +1,14 @@
 ---
-tags: [world-wide-web, computer-history, internet, socio-political]
+tags:
+  [world-wide-web, computer-history, internet, socio-political, bulletin-boards]
 created: Monday, November 04, 2024
 ---
 
 # f6564af9_AOL_and_early_internet_enclosure
 
-We might view AOL, with it's millions of 'free trial' CD-ROMs, as the first
+We might view AOL, with its ubiquitous 'free trial' CD-ROMs, as the first
 attempt by a corporate entity to try and enclose the Internet/Web. To take the
-vase informational expanse and reduce it to a single, filtered and contained
+vast informational expanse and reduce it to a single, filtered and contained
 space controlled by a single company.
 
 ![Early AOL interface](../img/aol-on-windows.jpg)
@@ -28,8 +29,9 @@ at a time when accessing information was opaque and confusing to the average
 non-technical user. The advent of the web first threatened and then basically
 obviated this model, when access to information via browsers and HTTP servers
 made the process easier and more democratized. Hence why AOL then tellingly
-pivoted to the browser and search-engine market, the next available mechanism of
-enclosure.
+pivoted to the browser and search-engine market (purchasing
+[Netscape](c301a0b3-1d8_Mosaic_Netscape_and_Browser_Wars.md) in 1999), the next
+available mechanism of enclosure.
 
 ![AOL homepage](../img/aol-original.jpg)