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A Look Back at Internet Firsts

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In October 1969, UCLA student Charley Kline was attempting to send the word “login” over to the Stanford Research Institute using the internet’s precursor: ARPANET.

At first, the system crashed, only managing to send the letters “i” and “o”. But an hour or so later, the full message was successfully sent and history was made:

internet arpanet 1969 sri ucla

Today, the internet permeates every facet of modern life. Billions of people around the world communicate through messaging apps, email, and social media platforms. By 2020, an estimated 20.8 billion “things” will be connected to the internet (including 13 billion household items like TVs, smoke detectors, and appliances).

It all starts somewhere

Though YouTube, Facebook, and email are ubiquitous now, they all started out with a single post, profile, or message, and that first action is not always what you’d expect.

As today’s infographic from Academized demonstrates, “firsts” on the internet are typically unpolished, unique snapshots of the people involved in creating the platform. From elephants at the zoo to live-streaming a coffee pot, we hope you enjoy this trip down memory lane.

Internet Firsts

Links to Notable Internet Firsts

Everything posted to the web now lives in perpetuity.

Here are some notable internet firsts that can still be viewed, replicated, or experienced:

The First Search Engine

The first search engine was created to connect the McGill University’s School of Computer Science to the Internet. The engine, called Archie, was up-and-running in 1990, a full eight years before Google was created. The University of Warsaw still hosts a functioning version of Archie for historical purposes.

The First Amazon Order

Today, Amazon processes billions of orders per year, but the very first order was placed in July 1995. The grandiosely named book, Fluid Concepts and Creative Analogies: Computer Models Of The Fundamental Mechanisms Of Thought, was ordered by computer scientist John Wainwright, who was beta-testing Amazon.com.

The First YouTube Video

The very first YouTube video was uploaded by YouTube’s co-founder, Jawad Karim. The 19-second video is no Gangnam Style. Jawad, who is standing in front of an elephant enclosure, deadpans, “Uh. The cool thing about these guys is that, is that they have really, really, really long, um, trunks, and that’s, that’s cool.” Cool, indeed.

The First Tweet

Internet firsts are rarely flashy, as this tweet from Twitter co-founder, Jack Dorsey, demonstrates. That said, as startups grow from rag-tag teams of determined founders into global behemoths, it’s nice to look back at those authentic, spontaneous first pieces of content.

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Charted: The Jobs Most Impacted by AI

We visualized the results of an analysis by the World Economic Forum, which uncovered the jobs most impacted by AI.

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Charted: The Jobs Most Impacted by AI

This was originally posted on our Voronoi app. Download the app for free on iOS or Android and discover incredible data-driven charts from a variety of trusted sources.

Large language models (LLMs) and other generative AI tools haven’t been around for very long, but they’re expected to have far-reaching impacts on the way people do their jobs. With this in mind, researchers have already begun studying the potential impacts of this transformative technology.

In this graphic, we’ve visualized the results of a World Economic Forum report, which estimated how different job departments will be exposed to AI disruption.

Data and Methodology

To identify the job departments most impacted by AI, researchers assessed over 19,000 occupational tasks (e.g. reading documents) to determine if they relied on language. If a task was deemed language-based, it was then determined how much human involvement was needed to complete that task.

With this analysis, researchers were then able to estimate how AI would impact different occupational groups.

DepartmentLarge impact (%)Small impact (%)No impact (%)
IT73261
Finance70219
Customer Sales671617
Operations651817
HR57412
Marketing56413
Legal46504
Supply Chain431839

In our graphic, large impact refers to tasks that will be fully automated or significantly altered by AI technologies. Small impact refers to tasks that have a lesser potential for disruption.

Where AI will make the biggest impact

Jobs in information technology (IT) and finance have the highest share of tasks expected to be largely impacted by AI.

Within IT, tasks that are expected to be automated include software quality assurance and customer support. On the finance side, researchers believe that AI could be significantly useful for bookkeeping, accounting, and auditing.

Still interested in AI? Check out this graphic which ranked the most commonly used AI tools in 2023.

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