How the Internet Became Commercial (Greenstein)
12: Decentralized decision was far better at enabling exploratory actions than a central decision-making process, often because it enabled actions by entrepreneurial actors with distinct points of view
16: the World Wide Web became a layer of software that enables browser-based applications over the Internet
23: Collective invention is a process in which improvements or experimental findings about a production process or tool are regularly shared
29: In 1989 Wolff began meeting with other stakeholders in the academic Internet an so began a series of conversations about introducing private enterprise into the Internet’s operations
41: Deploying applications did not require coordinating with the carriers of the data - usually a telephone company - each time there was a transaction or an addition of a new application
62: While it’s too much to say that prototypes trumped theory, participants would support a prototype that worked today instead of a proposal that might work perfectly some time in the future
69: As early as 1986 Senator Al Gore made speeches supporting basic research in computer networking
70: The Federal government bought frontier computers and applications at uncommonly high prices. NASA, the DoD, US Census, NSA all had served as the lead buyers for frontier computing of the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s.
71: It was obvious that nobody a decade earlier, not even the most optimistic visionary, could have forecast the direction the Internet took in commercial markets. After privatization, too many contingencies and surprises shaped outcomes, making the ultimate economic consequence fundamentally unknowable in advance.
82: The final plan emerged in 1993. The shutdown of the NSFNET finally was set for the spring of 1995.
98: Mosaic built on top of and openly imitated many working prototypes created elsewhere by others.
102: Berners-Lee was far from the first programmer to try to devise a hyper-text system and he was aware of prior efforts.
102: That experience taught him the importance of compromising technical ambition in order to foster adoption: users adopted software when it was easier to use and its functionality was readily apparent.
105: In February of 1995, the University of Minnesota, the home of the inventors for Gopher, announced the intention to charge a licensing fee for its use, and that raised a concern among many insiders that the university intended to charge for all extensions as well, which motivated many administrators to abandon investing in Gopher and make use of HTML and the URL.
105: Berners-Lee and Cailliau put considerable effort into publicizing their invention and making it known, investing more energy in marketing and distribution than typically found among computer programmers in the academic world.
108: Mosaic initially appeared to be a routine project making mundane and incremental progress, seeking to design an easy-to-use browser for non-researchers. That is, it was an attempt to improve on one aspect of the shareware Berners-Lee made available less than a year earlier to which others had made improvements
108: Other browsers: ViolaWWW, Erwise, Midas, Cello
109: They made a browser that was easy to install and use. Marc marketed Mosaic hard on the net.
110: Spring 1993 Mosaic released on Unix and immediately began receiving attention
124: The deal in January of 1995 between Spyglass and Microsoft initially was for $2 million. In a notable departure from Microsoft’s usual practices, the company agreed to pay a royalty from Internet Explorer’s revenue
136: 1994 Integrated Services Digital Network - It Still Does Nothing
142: Prior to the mid-1990s this group of BBSs had difficulty widening their appeal beyond technically sophisticated home PC users
152: Neither the US telephone company executives nor regulators initially assumed that the telephone companies should be the only providers of internet service
161: John Sutter leader of the Californian gold rush was originally looking for fresh timber not gold
162: Gold rush characteristics: 1) value remains unknown for a long time, 2) Knowledge about the new idea spreads rapidly, 3) Many prospectors explore and invest hoping to gain later, 4) Every prospector takes action quickly believing only the first movers will reap benefits
162: What circumstances prevented the Internet gold rush from happening earlier?
163: The introduction of Netscape’s first commercial browser eventually started the second and much nosier rush
163: Netscape’s IPO therefore probably the best symbolic event for marking the birth of the commercial web and the beginning of events that resembled an Internet gold rush
165: Most customers were in the midst of converting large-scale computing to client-serer architecture or any other form of local networking
165: It’s involvement with the NSFNET gave its employees in the research division early insights into how to make TCP/IP-based equipment especially routers.There was one obvious hitch, IBM’s research division handled the activity, and that needed to be translated into viable businesses in other divisions within IBM.
166: In the early 1990 IBM’s enterprise division refused to be involved with any equipment using Internet protocols. Its division favored selling proprietary equipment.
167: Cisco began as a supplier of routers and hubs for academic ISPs and operations.
170: Management in Redmond believed it’s success partly arose fro its systematic studying of the actions of many other firms before settling on strategic plans.
171: The standard assessment relegated the Internet to status as internal plumbing for an IT system, not as a consumer facing aspect of software
174: Gates believed like much of the rest of the software industry at the time, that browsers could not be a profitable stand-alone business and therefore would not make much money in commercial markets.
179: Underestimating the ability for Internet firms to support applications that substituted for Microsoft’s in the marketplace
185: Even if Stephen Wolff had taken out a full page ad in every major newspaper in the summer of 1994 and explained the NSF privitization in great detail few participants in the computing or communications industry would have grasped the implications
190: In North America the Internet and the PC also both drw on similar knowledge base and similar pools of programming talent who shared lessons with one another
190: Unlike the PC market there was no profit-oriented organization providing platform leadership for the commercial Internet in 1995
192: Platforms are most readily identified with their technical standards, engineering specifications for compatible hardware and software
194: MSFT strategy stressed having an exclusive position as the provider of pervasive technologies on which applications where built
216: Widespread economic growth could not arise until many market participants figured how to make each innovation inexpensive, easy to deploy, in a wide set of circumstances
266: In 1995, 25% of households had a PC
306: Netscape’s browser bought to life one of Gate’s biggest nightmares, that enormous functionality could be delivered to users through alternative channels
341: Investors questioned the validity of traditional investment metrics
346: It also illustrates just how quickly the established firms of Wall Street could and would jettison experienced and tempered analysts and those who used long-term fundamentals replacing them with analysts who will push the prevailing view
374: Google simplistic design was a byproduct of the founders’ lack of HTML skills - more important about strategic positioning than simplistic things
375: Other search engines where AltaVista, Lycos, Find-What, GoTo, Excite, Infoseek, RankDex, WebCrawler, Ask Jeeves, Inkomi
Omid Kordestani: Fact is we have 130 customers that we power search for and they don’t think we’re competing with them and we’re comfortable with that model
440: Competition fostered growth in a range of economic activity related to the commercial Internet
440: Gates would not have changed his view had there not been a firm with a distinct commercial outlook directly confronting his plans for capturing value from a value chain
441: In the case of the Internet, low frictions, decentralization, and a diversity of competition enhanced innovation from the edges