Introduction

-I like how the author started the introduction by comparing the evolution of a person and the evolution of the internet. Both started with very limited ways of communication but throughout their growth has gathered information and is now able to "speak" is a complex manner.

-Like a child developing in its adolencence, early computer models were "immature" and hard to operate. It took years of growth and developmemt for them for them to fuction properly.

-The World Wide Web has gone through 6 stages of development in its 10 years of life. Each stage learned from its predesessor through its evolution.

-6 stages of web development: the simple sharing era, the image and table era, the design intro era, the techno-hype era, the usability era, and the speaking web

-The simple sharing era was the web's beginning phase when only simple text was used to communicate between researchers and academics.

-The image/table era was a time when basic images as well as text were being shared by the limited users of the web. This blossomed into the creation of web sites and eventually into the first web browser (Netscape).

-The usability era was when the web began function better internally as well as externally. Usability professionals developed concepts to cut download times through minimizing page sizes. This made the web easily accessable.

-The web is now at a stage where its function is not an issue anymore. The internet is now an household name with millions of people using it to communicate and gather information. This makes the presentation of a web site one of the most important aspects of gaining viewers.