20 years of stuff

It's hard to understate the importance of the web in both society and business. So much so that it feels like it's been around for generations, when in reality the world wide interweb is just 20 years old.

Invented in 1991 by a scientist at the European Organization for Nuclear Research – not Al Gore – as a way to share scholarly research, it's amazing how how quickly it has come to be essential to our lives.

Imagine what the world would be like had it never been invented...

• Would we have ever heard the terms e-commerce, disintermediation, and ROTFLMFAO?
• Where would we get all of our coupons, news, and hollywood gossip?
• Where would we be without those companies that transformed business like Pets.com, Outpost.com and AOL?
• How would we meet our soul mates?
• Where would we go to watch videos of cats?
• How would we learn about lowering our mortgage rates?
• Who would deliver our letters from deposed Nigerian princes?
• What would we do with all our free time?

And most importantly who would we turn to for advice on all manner of topics, including marketing?

Happy 20th birthday, www. Thanks for giving me this forum along with a lot of other useful stuff. Just think, next year you'll be old enough to drink and then the fun really begins.