This Day in Internet History

Microsoft launched MSN Messenger Service, its answer to AOL Instant Messenger and ICQ, which had already been dominating instant messaging for years. It integrated tightly with Hotmail's 40+ million users and controversially allowed early cross-chat with AIM users — a bridge AOL quickly moved to block. Despite arriving late to the space, MSN Messenger (later rebranded Windows Live Messenger) became the defining chat app for a generation of '90s and 2000s internet users before Skype eventually replaced it.

Stephen Wilhite was working at CompuServe in 1987 when he and his team created a new format that allowed users to share compressed image files with ease. The first GIF (Graphics Interchange Format) was released on June 15, 1987. The looping animal format went on to become 'a universal language for conveying humor, sarcasm and angst on social media and in instant messages,' making GIFs one of the most important visual elements of internet culture [web:162].

Tim Berners-Lee published the first website at CERN, describing the World Wide Web project. The site explained what the web was and how to use it. It is still online today at info.cern.ch making it the oldest website on the internet.

Jeff Bezos launched Amazon.com from his garage in Bellevue, Washington as an online bookstore. The first book sold was Fluid Concepts and Creative Analogies by Douglas Hofstadter. Within the first month, Amazon had sold books in 45 countries.

A 3D rendered animation of a baby doing a cha-cha dance spread across the early internet via email chains. Many consider it the very first viral internet meme, predating the word 'meme' being used in this context. It later appeared on the TV show Ally McBeal, cementing its place in pop culture history.

Larry Page and Sergey Brin officially incorporated Google Inc. in a garage in Menlo Park, California. The search engine had already been processing around 10,000 search queries per day. Google's name is a play on the word 'googol', a mathematical term for the number 1 followed by 100 zeros.

Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger launched Wikipedia, the free online encyclopedia that anyone could edit. Academics were skeptical — how could crowd-sourced knowledge be reliable? Today Wikipedia has over 60 million articles in 300+ languages and is the fifth most visited website in the world.

MySpace launched and quickly became the most visited website in the United States, overtaking Google in 2006. It introduced millions of people to profile pages, friend lists, the all-important Top 8, and the ability to embed a song that played automatically — often a source of great annoyance to anyone opening your page at work.

Mark Zuckerberg launched TheFacebook.com from his Harvard dorm room. Initially only available to Harvard students, it expanded to other universities within months. Unlike Friendster and MySpace which allowed pseudonyms, Facebook required real names — a controversial decision that would shape social media forever.

Steve Huffman and Alexis Ohanian launched Reddit from a University of Virginia dorm room. In its early days, the founders created fake accounts to make the site look more active. Reddit later became one of the most influential platforms on the internet, responsible for launching countless memes, movements, and viral moments.

Three former PayPal employees — Chad Hurley, Steve Chen, and Jawed Karim — founded YouTube in a garage above a pizzeria in San Mateo. The first video uploaded was 'Me at the zoo' by co-founder Jawed Karim, just 18 seconds long. Google acquired YouTube 18 months later for $1.65 billion in stock.