Taking Your Talent to the Web

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Netscape goes open source, unveiling the secrets of its code in the hopes that thousands of programmers around the world will join together to create a newer, better version of the Netscape browser. The open source project for the Netscape Navigator source code is named Mozilla. The Department of Justice begins an antitrust lawsuit against Microsoft.

1999

America Online (AOL), though partially responsible for the growth and popularity of the Web, has long been despised by Internet connoisseurs. Many holding this view are die-hard Netscape users, who see AOL as a proprietary service for frightened “newbies” (neophyte Internet users). In a move that shocks the online world, AOL buys Netscape.

Netscape announces that its upcoming 5.0 browser, being built by the Mozilla open source project, will fully support the five key standards demanded by The Web Standards Project (www.webstandards.org /mission.html). The 5.0 browser never sees the light of day, but in late 2000 the project and Netscape will give birth to Netscape Navigator 6.

Microsoft announces that its upcoming 5.0 browser for the Mac will fully support two key web standards and offer “90 percent support” for others.

At least 100,000 web-related jobs cannot be filled because of lack of qualified personnel. Populi, the Web Talent Incubator, is launched to solve this problem. Your humble web author, who appears to enjoy typing the phrase

“your humble web author,” will later help Populi develop a curriculum in web communication design, which will still later become the basis for the book you are now reading, which will yet later be unearthed by archeologists of the thirty-first century, along with a Pepsi bottle.

2000

The year web standards broke, 1

Internet Explorer 5, Macintosh Edition is released in March, offering near perfect support for HTML 4, CSS-1, and JavaScript (www.alistapart.com/stories/ie5mac/).

122 WHO: How This Web Thing Got Started: Why We Mentioned These Things

The year web standards broke, 2

Netscape 6 is released in the wee hours of November 14. It supports XML, and the W3C DOM as well as the standards supported by IE5/Mac.

The year web standards broke, 3

Opera 5 (www.opera.com), released in December, supports HTML, CSS, XML, WML, ECMAScript, and the DOM (www.opera.com/opera5/specs.html).

The year the bubble burst

A number of ill-conceived web businesses fail, causing the usual dire predictions and market panics. A number of good web businesses are dragged down along with the unworthy ones. Overbuilt web agencies lay off staff; other agencies absorb them.

2001

You buy this book. And buy a second copy for a friend. And a third for your coffee table.