11 Facts About Internet: Explore The Less Known

Earth Internet (Credit: Pixabay)

Our everyday lives now revolve around the internet. For work, communication, pleasure, and other purposes, we depend on it. However, the internet is rich of intriguing history and less known facts that go beyond the well-known websites, social media platforms, and search engines. The typical user is still mostly unaware of some of its more unexpected features but we will look at 11 lesser-known internet facts in this blog post article that will change your perspective on the digital world as follows:

1. The First Website is Still Online: British computer scientist Tim Berners-Lee launched the first website in 1991, marking the beginning of the internet as we know it today. The website, called info.cern.ch, was a straightforward platform that provided information on the World Wide Web project and web page creation. The European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), in Switzerland, where Berners-Lee was employed at the time, hosted its launch and the fact that info.cern.ch is still in use today is fascinating with also anyone experiencing the very beginnings of the web by viewing the original page, which is hosted as a historical archive. In addition to launching the World Wide Web, this first website laid the groundwork for its rapid expansion, which ultimately revolutionised how people interact, exchange information, and do business. Tim Berners-Lee's vision of an interconnected world has endured, as seen by the site's continuous presence while providing a rare window into the past, demonstrating the extent to which the internet has developed since its infancy.

2. The Internet Weighs About as Much as a Strawberry: Although it is an abstract idea, the "weight" of the internet has sparked the interest of numerous scholars and scientists whereby massive data centres, millions of servers, and a steady stream of information through our gadgets are typically what come to mind when we think of the internet but in reality, the internet's whole weight is tiny. Photons are light particles that make up the data moving through fiber-optic cables and the real weight of the data traveling across the internet is almost zero because photons are massless, thus the entire internet weighs about 50 grams, which is roughly the same as a small strawberry, when you include the actual infrastructure plus the small mass needed for data transfer. The infrastructure of the internet is made up of data centres, satellite links, and thousands of miles of fiber-optic cables. Even while the figure can seem fairly low, it is an intriguing approach to consider how the internet can be so light in spite of its enormous reach.

3. The First Domain Ever Registered: On March 15, 1985, symbolics.com, the first domain name in history, was registered and since the internet was still in its infancy, domain registration was not yet a popular idea. Symbolics, Inc., a Cambridge, Massachusetts-based computer manufacturer, registered the domain. It is amazing that symbolics.com is still up and running today and despite a few ownership changes, it is still a historical treasure from the early days of the internet. The domain name serves as a reminder of how far the internet has advanced since 1985, when government organisations and educational institutions were the leading users of the internet not forgetting that the immense digital world we traverse on a daily basis is shaped by the millions of domain names that are registered every day.

4. More Devices Are Connected Than People: We frequently discuss the internet in terms of people, including the number of users, the number of people on social media, and the ways in which the digital world connects us but in reality, there are more internet-connected devices than there are individuals. Over 25 billion devices are currently online, according to recent estimates, and this figure is predicted to continue rising quickly. Smartphones, laptops, smart home gadgets, industrial machinery, and even appliances like thermostats and refrigerators fall under this category with one of the main causes of this exponential growth in linked devices being the emergence of the Internet of Things (IoT). Our environment is becoming more interconnected as a result of these devices' continuous data collection and transmission. In many respects, the internet is now a worldwide network of devices that communicate and share information in real time, rather than only being a place for human users.

5. Over 90% of The Internet’s Data is Hidden: Even though we can access a lot of information through search engines like Google, much of the data on the internet is hidden from the general public, in the sense that, the Deep Web, a secret section of the internet that is not indexed by conventional search engines, is really thought to contain over 90% of the internet's material. Databases, scholarly materials, personal documents, medical records, and other specialised information not meant for wide public consumption are all part of the Deep Web whereby these resources are essential for many domains, such as business, healthcare, and research. Although the Dark Web, a tiny portion of the Deep Web, frequently garners attention for illegal activity, the majority of the Deep Web is made up of significant and valid content that is just not intended to be found using standard search terms.

6. The "Y2K Bug" Was Not Just a Fear: Many people were worried about the so-called Y2K Bug as the year 2000 drew near whereby '99' for 1999, for example, was the only two-digit representation of years in many older computer systems, which caused this issue, hence there were concerns that these systems would mistake the year 2000 for 1900, leading to major issues in everything from air traffic control to banking. A great amount of work was done to fix systems and make sure they would perform properly as a result of the Y2K crisis not forgetting that it is projected that fixing the Y2K issue by upgrading computers cost over $300 billion. Although the anticipated worldwide calamity never came to pass, the Y2K bug was a pivotal moment in internet history that demonstrated how reliant on technology society was growing.

7. The Internet’s Backbone is Like a Physical Highway: Although the internet may appear to be an intangible, abstract concept, its physical infrastructure is extremely extensive and sophisticated where submarine cables that span oceans, linking continents and transporting enormous volumes of data, form the backbone of the internet with also 99% of all internet traffic worldwide being carried by these cables, some of which are more than 17,000 kilometres long. Connecting data centres and facilitating the smooth exchange of information across nations, they are deposited on the ocean floor and these physical cables continue to be a crucial component of the internet's infrastructure, allowing data to move swiftly and effectively around the world even in the age of wireless technologies.

8. Google Knows More Than You Think: It is impossible to overestimate Google's impact on the internet, making it one of the most powerful corporations in the world. Google disclosed in 2013 that it had access to over 70% of all internet activity which covers not just search terms but also emails, browsing history, location information, and even interactions with advertisements and maps with also Google having unmatched insights into people's online behaviour because of its control over online activities targeting advertisements (ads), improving services, and optimising its algorithms using the data collected. Google's extensive data collection capabilities generate significant concerns over online privacy and the value of personal data in the digital age, despite the company's robust privacy rules over the years.

9. The Average Age of a Webpage is Only 100 Days: Many websites vanish quickly, as you may have observed if you have ever attempted to locate an old webpage or blog post in the sense that a webpage often only lasts 100 days before being changed, removed, or rendered outdated whereby this quick turnover is a result of the internet's fast-paced environment with websites being frequently updated, revamped, or abandoned, and new content added on a regular basis, hence it may be challenging to locate trustworthy, long-lasting internet materials because of this turnover but there are also initiatives to preserve the digital history, like the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine, which lets users see screenshots of websites from various eras.

10. Email Predates The World Wide Web: Email actually predates the World Wide Web by decades, despite the fact that most people link it with the development of the internet. Ray Tomlinson, a computer engineer, sent the first email in 1971 and the ARPANET, the forerunner of the internet, was used to transmit the message between two computers. Long before web browsers and search engines were invented, email became a vital part of the internet where in reality, email was already widely used by professionals, researchers, and academics for communication by the early 1990s, when the World Wide Web was first launched. Email is still one of the most popular forms of communication in the world today.

11. The "First Meme" Was Created in 1996: Internet culture has become heavily reliant on memes, the infectious pictures, movies, and words that go viral online. However, the "Dancing Baby" or "Baby Cha-Cha," the first internet meme, was made in 1996. One of the first instances of content becoming viral on the internet was this 3D animation of a newborn dancing. The Dancing Baby may appear archaic by today's standards, but it set the stage for the meme culture that would flourish in the ensuing decades, impacting everything from internet marketing tactics to social media trends.

Summary

The above 11 little-known facts offer a view into the internet's intriguing past and hidden depths, revealing a complex and constantly changing ecology. The internet is a digital environment with a rich history and an exciting future, encompassing everything from the first website still in existence to the enormous, invisible realm of the Deep Web, thus consider the history of the internet, its hidden facets, and the numerous amazing facts that make it a genuinely exceptional and one-of-a-kind aspect of contemporary life the next time you are online.