The Internet was envisioned when engineers and computer specialists conceptualized sending messages via a system of networked computers. The first ARPANET plan was created in 1966 and by 1967, design discussions were taking place along with meetings of three independent packing teams (RAND, NPL and ARPA).

ARPANET was commissioned in 1969, with four nodes located at UCLA, Stanford Research Institute, University of California Santa Barbara and the University of Utah. The first message transmitted on the Internet was later that year from the node at UCLA to the node at Stanford University. The attempt was to send the word login, but only the l and o made it before the computer crashed while g was entered (Kaye and Medoff, 2001)."

The next two decades were devoted to expanding the capabilities of the Internet. By 1971, there were 15 nodes across the United States and in 1973 the first international connection was set up at the University College of London. Other firsts include the first email in 1973, the first mailing list in 1975 and the first virus, which caused ARPANET to come to a halt in 1980.

The number of hosts topped 100,000 by 1989 and in 1990, ARPANET ceased to exist. What we know so commonly as the World-Wide Web (www) was released by CERN in 1991 and the next year, the number of hosts broke 1,000,000. 1992 also brought about the coining of the popular term, "surfing the Internet" by Jean Armour Polly.

Up until this point, the public rarely used the Internet. Retrieving information on the Internet at first involved a series of complicated steps involving locating the data, making remote connections and downloading data to a local computer. Due to the extensive labor involved in retrieval and the limited content out there, the Internet was used mainly for sharing scientific and military information.

Originally, the Internet was thought of as being "above" commercial endeavors such as advertising and marketing, but in 1993, businesses and media began taking notice of the it. ARPANET/Internet celebrated its 25th anniversary in 1994 and along with it, came the first piece of "spam" from an Arizona law firm with an email advertising green card lottery services. That same year also saw the first banner ads advertising Zima, AT&T and Education Network Association.

By 1995, traditional online dial-up systems, such as American Online, CompuServe and Prodigy began to provide Internet access. A number of net related companies also went public. Over the next years many advances in the Internet became popular, such as search engines, java, internet phone, e-commerce, e-auctions, portals, e-trade, online banking, mp3's, Napster and others.

The following is a graph the displays the rate of Internet Growth:


History of Internet Advertising

"The growth of Internet advertising since its 1994 birth has been truly phenomenal. What started out with banners as bland and common as roadside billboards has exploded into a rich-media interactive environment that may soon rival the rabbit hole in Alice in Wonderland. (Kaye et al, 2001)."

On October 27, 1994 online advertising was born when HotWired signed up fourteen advertisers for its online debut. The following year saw the emergence and public acceptance of the Web as an interactive medium. Both United Airlines and Maytag introduced their websites and promoted them through banners. By 1996, advertisers were promoting websites using traditional media.

Now, online advertising is a world of rich media. Banners pop up into their own browser windows, advertisements appear on screen before the page is finished downloading, advertising interrupts online games and other interactions, images are beginning to resemble television commercials.

Online advertising is quickly becoming more diverse as sites cater to more traditional advertisers' and search for ways to better meet advertisers needs.