Top Ten Defining Internet Moments
The internet is without doubt, the big story of the last quarter of a century. We decided to ask some of our consultants what they consider to be their pivotal moments of the internet since its launch. 
- When high street shopping and big commercial companies decided to go online (1981).
- Freeserve was one of the first of the UK’s internet service providers to dispense with the usual monthly subscription fee for Internet access (1998).
- The launch of online auctioneer EBay (1995).
- The launch of Amazon (1994).
- The launch of Geocities (1994).
- The launch of SKYPE (2003), the software application that allows users to make voice calls over the internet.
- The launch of h2g2.com; In April 1999, Douglas Adams, the author of the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, initiated the h2g2 collaboration project, an experimental attempt at making the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy a reality.
- Robert Tappan Morris was the first person convicted under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act in 1989 for creating the Morris Worm in 1988, this was considered the first computer worm on the internet.
- The launch of social networking (1985), The Well, (The Whole Earth L’electronic Link) is one of the earliest online communities, it currently has about 4,000 members and is best known for its internet forums.
- The ARPANET (Advanced Research Projects Agency Network) was created by the United States Department of Defence in 1962 during the Cold War and was the world’s first operational packet switching network and the predecessor of the global internet.