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     landmarks

This page offers highlights in the history of internet search and retrieval.

It covers -

• before the web - MARC and OPACs
• the browser - and the search engine
• PICS and DC - online metadata standards
• DMOZ and Google - the third wave of engines and directories
• consolidation - dominant engines/directories buy smaller competitors and add new features

Context is provided by the broader communications timeline and the 'landmarks' in discussion of metadata and browsers elsewhere on this site.

     before the web

1961 International Conference on Cataloguing Principles (ICCP) articulates 'Paris Principles'

1967 first edition of Anglo-American Cataloguing Rules

1967 OCLC established

1968 release of MARC (MAchine Readable Cataloging) as US standard

1974 International Standard Bibliographic Description

1977 Nippon Cataloguing Rules (NCR)

1984 MARC Archival & Manuscript Control (AMC) format published by US Library of Congress

     the browser and the search engine

1989 Tim Berners-Lee proposes global hypertext space

1990 Berners-Lee develops WorldWideWeb browser to support what becomes the web

1990 Alan Emtage at McGill University creates 'Archie' ftp search tool

1991 Mark McCahill at University of Minnesota introduces 'Gopher' as alternative to Archie

1992 'Veronica' launched at University of Nevada

1993 Matthew Gray creates World Wide Web Wanderer at MIT

1993 NCSA Mosaic released

1993 Lynx released

1993 Martijn Koster creates Archie-Like Indexing of the Web (ALIWEB)

1993 JumpStation

1993 World Wide Web Worm spider

1993 Repository-Based Software Engineering (RBSE) spider

1994 General International Standard Archival Description (ISAD(G)) published by International Council on Archives

1994 Netscape releases Navigator

1994 launch of Galaxy searchable Web directory

1994 David Filo & Jerry Yang at Stanford University start Yahoo!

1994 Brian Pinkerton introduces WebCrawler

1994 Carnegie Mellon launches Lycos search engine with directory of 54,000 documents

1995 Infoseek becomes default search engine for Netscape

     PICS and DC

1995 Platform for Internet Content Selection (PICS)

1995 first Dublin Core (DC) Workshop held in Dublin, Ohio

1995 Microsoft licences Mosaic as basis for Internet Explorer (IE), released as Windows 95 Plus with default page set to MSN

1995 Erik Selberg launches MetaCrawler

1995 Digital Equipment Corporation launches AltaVista

1995 launch of Excite

1996 launch of Inktomi

1996 launch of HotBot

1996 ANZLIC geospatial Metadata Guidelines

1996 US Government Information Locator Service (GILS)

1996 launch of LookSmart

1997 Excite buys WebCrawler

1997 DOI launched

1997 Crossref launched

1997 Australian Government Locator Service (AGLS) developed

1997 launch of Ask Jeeves

1997 launch of GoTo (pay-per-click search)

1997 launch of Northern Light

1998 launch of Gnuhoo, later rebadged as Newhoo and Open Directory Project (ODP)

1998 launch of MSN Search

1998 AGLS metadata standard promulgated by Commonwealth government

1998 Australian Spatial Data Directory (ASDD) launched

1998 Geocities acquires WebRing

1998 Yahoo! buys rocketmail.com

1998 Yahoo! buys online marketing agency Yoyodyne

     DMOZ and Google

1998 ODP acquired by Netscape for US$1m

1998 Larry Page & Sergey Brin of Stanford launch Google

1998 US Federal Geographic Data Committee (FGDC) Content Standard for Digital Geospatial Metadata

1999 Disney launches GO Network with InfoSeek search

1999 NBC launches NBCi with Snap

1999 Yahoo! buys Geocities

1999 CMGI buys 82% of AltaVista

1999 Yaho! buys broadcast.com for US$6.1bn

1999 Norwegian FAST claims to be first engine to index 200 million web pages

1999 Encoded Archival Description (EAD) adopted by Society of American Archivists (SAA)

1999 DC Version 1.1. Elements recommended

2000 set of DC Qualifiers recommended

2000 US Cooperative Online Resource Catalog (CORC)

     consolidation and elaboration

2001 Ask Jeeves buys Teoma

2001 GoTo renamed Overture

2001 Google buys Deja usenet archive

2002 DC becomes ANSI/NISO standard

2002 AGLS published as Australian Standard AS 5044

2002 Overture establishes alliance with Yahoo! and MSN

2003 Overture buys AltaVista

2003 LookSmart dropped by MSN

2003 Google AdSense

2003 Yahoo! buys Overture for US$1.6bn

2003 Mooter launched

2003 Gigablast launched

2003 Apple launches Safari browser

2003 Yahoo! bids US$120m for Chinese internationalised domain name domain name seller 3721

2004 Ask Jeeves acquires Excite, My Way and iWon

2004 Clusty launched

2004 GMail launched by Google

2004 Google Scholar launched

2004 Amazon launches A9 engine

2004 Google buys Keyhole mapping service

2005 Yahoo buys Dialpad Communications

2005 Google becomes domain registrar

2005 Google introduces maps feature

2005 IAC/InterActiveCorp buys Ask Jeeves for US$1.9bn

2005 Yahoo! buys Flickr.com

2005 Google agrees to buy 5% of AOL for US$1bn

2005 Yahoo! buys Del.icio.us

2006 Yahoo! buys Jumpcut.com (est 2005)

2006 Google pays $US1.65bn for YouTube

2006 Yahoo! acquires Bix.com

2006 Google pays US$1.24bn for dMarc Broadcasting

2007 Yahoo pays US$40m for 20% of online advertising exchange Right Media

2006 beta version of Google Patent Search

2006 Google acquires Endoxon internet mapping solutions

2006 Google acquires in-game ad firm Adscape for £11.8m

2007 Google acquires DoubleClick for US$3.1bn

2007 Google acquires video conferencing specialist Marratech

2007 Yahoo buys remaining 80% of Right Media for US$680m

2007 Google buys FeedBurner (est 2004) for US$100m

2007 Google buys Panoramio

2007 eBay acquires StumbleUpon for US$75m

2007 Google buys online slide presentation company Zenter and presentation software company Tonic Systems

2007 Google buys GrandCentral Communications

2007 Google pays US$625m for Postini

2007 AOL pays US$275m for 'behavioral targeter' Tacoda

2007 R H Donnelley buys business search engine Business.com for US$345m

2007 Yahoo buys online advertising network BlueLithium for US$300m

2007 LookSmart sells FindArticles to CNET Networks for US$20.5m

2008 Microsoft bids US$$44.6bn for Yahoo!

2008 Yahoo! pays US$160m for Maven Networks

2008 Ask.com pays US$100m for Lexico Publishing Group (Dictionary.com, Thesaurus.com and Reference.com)

2008 Microsoft agrees to buy semantic search engine Powerset for US$100m

2008 launch of Cuil engine

2008 Microsoft agrees to buy Greenfield Online (European price comparison site ciao.com) for US$486m

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