1992-93: The early adopters
Academic and research networks led the way in data communications. Internet connectivity started in the US and rippled out from the National Science Foundation there. The protocols and processes behind the internet-based World Wide Web, on the other hand, originated at the CERN physics laboratory in Geneva and the early experimenters were drawn from the research community in Europe.
The Réseaux Associés pour la Recherche Européenne (RARE) group of academic networks played a critical role. One of the first demonstrations of the hypertext mark-up language (HTML) that would underpin the web took place at a RARE technical committee session in 1991.
Ireland’s delegate at that meeting, Peter Flynn, had extensive experience with mark-up languages. And, in another happy coincidence, he was working on a project that could make use of HTML.
The Curia project aimed to build a research database of early Irish language manuscripts and its founders had asked Peter Flynn to prepare an IT strategy. He suggested that the Curia records should be formatted in HTML and made accessible through the internet. In April 1992 he completed the configuration of a Sun workstation at University College Cork as a web server. CERN was monitoring the launches of new web platforms and logged this machine as number nine on its list.
In the following year CERN announced that its HTML technology would be free for anyone to use. Other organisations also began to develop and distribute web software. The US National Center for Supercomputing Applications at the University of Illinois became one of the most influential innovators after the release of its Mosaic web browser in June 1993.
That summer, more than a year after the Curia server had gone online, a flurry of web activity occurred at Trinity College Dublin (TCD). Research students in different areas of the university configured Sun workstations as web servers. Two influential companies on the TCD campus – internet service provider IEunet and object-oriented software specialist Iona Technologies – did likewise.
By the end of 1993 the University of Limerick, internet service provider Ireland On-Line and Broadcom Éireann Research had landed on the web as well, while Northern Ireland’s first web server had gone live at the University of Ulster’s Magee campus in Derry.
Few people noticed the new phenomenon. The best known network services at that time were based on technologies other than the internet. Outside the universities there was far more awareness of the Minitel videotex format for information publishing and of electronic data interchange services that took the physical paperwork out of trade deals.
Even inside the small but growing band of internet users only a small subset had heard about the World Wide Web as yet. For those who encountered it, however, the way that HTML allowed users to jump from server to server – moving across multiple organisations and different continents – was exciting and unprecedented.
In most cases the early web sites were personal initiatives by internet enthusiasts who taught themselves the basics of HTML and how the web addressing scheme worked. They created pages that profiled their workplaces and contained links to sites run by their friends and acquaintances. Another standard practice was to highlight web resources around the world whose content they had found and liked. Internet connectivity, network technology and software tools were the usual topics.
These informal guides to just-one-click-away information set the tone for how the World Wide Web would evolve. Official academic projects like the Curia database were much less common and the corporate world had not shown any interest yet.
Halfway through 1993 CERN reckoned that there were about 140 web servers in the world, but it was becoming difficult to maintain a comprehensive list. By the end of that year, according to an estimate from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the total had risen to more than 600.
1994-96: A flood of enabling technologies
Web awareness in Ireland spread slowly during 1994, but other types of internet traffic were clearly on the rise. So was the number of internet service providers (ISPs). New companies like Internet Eireann, Genesis Project and Connect Ireland arrived on the scene. More internet access points opened around the country, enabling users in most regions to dial in for their email or file transfers for the price of a local phone call.
The resources of all the ISPs were limited and they knew that World Wide Web connections, which required a lot more bandwidth than other internet activities, could strain the capacity of their international lines. When the service providers ran promotional events they sometimes included a web demonstration. But they asked those customers who had web access to use it sparingly.
Another reason why the web was not yet ready for everyday use was the unreliability of the client software. Several developers were now offering web browsers for free download, but their performance was erratic, especially over dial-up lines. It was difficult to view any web page in its entirety before the link to the server failed, even if that page contained nothing more than text.
Some internet users, including people in commercial businesses, started experimenting with the web despite these technical limitations. During 1994 the ISPs began to create home pages for selected customers on subdomains of their own web sites, using the formula www.customername.ispname.ie. Some of Ireland’s largest organisations made their debut appearances on the web in this way.
A US start-up called Netscape Communications shook up the web world at the end of the year. The release of its Navigator software brought stability and dependability to web browsing for the first time, transforming the user experience. Netscape Navigator rapidly became the world’s dominant browser and sparked a global upsurge of web traffic in 1995.
The increase in web usage was as evident in Ireland as elsewhere, but the number of Irish organisations running web servers stayed rather low. In April 1995 there were just 45 registered server sites, 40 of which were run by academics, state agencies or ISPs.
Five months later the country fared badly in a census of European web servers. Industry analyst IDC ranked Ireland in the lower classes of internet adoption by citizens and internet commitment among businesses. Other EU states, including other small countries, had much larger populations of web sites.
By now, however, more help was available for companies that were interested in establishing a web presence. A new breed of consultancy and design firms was offering to build web sites. The earliest of these ventures, such as WebNet Technologies and W3 Services, came out of the universities. These were followed by a second wave of web specialists with a more commercial orientation. The likes of Webfactory and Solutions Group not only knew their way around HTML but also had experience in marketing and promotion.
New enabling technologies for web projects flooded across the internet in the wake of Netscape Navigator. The web had been born in Europe but most of the pace setters in tools and methods were now in the United States.
During 1995 Netscape itself released a suite of server software and announced a raft of strategic partnerships with other IT companies. The Apache Software Foundation produced its open source HTTP Server through a community of developers and maintainers. Sun Microsystems, whose computers underpinned much of the web, created the Java programming language to support web publishing and other internet applications.
Another computer maker, Digital Equipment, led the way in web searching. Its AltaVista engine appeared at the end of 1995 and quickly became the first choice for online information seekers around the world.
Sun’s Java strategy was particularly important because it plugged the gap between enterprise computing and the World Wide Web. Some Irish developers were quick to grasp the potential of this technology. Soon, indeed, Sun began to demonstrate a mortgage calculator created by Dublin-based Karl Jeacle when it needed to explain the capabilities of Java to its corporate customers.
Established software vendors in Ireland were also beginning to web-enable their client-server applications, allowing users to log in from anywhere via a web page. It was probably significant that the most prominent of these developers – companies like Iona Technologies, IT Design and Trintech – had offices and customers on the other side of the Atlantic.
All the elements required for the web to function as a global system for information search and retrieval were in place by the end of 1996. The first attempts to turn it into an infrastructure for mainstream computing operations were also underway.
1997-99: From views to transactions
In January 1997 Bank of Ireland announced its intention to run a pilot trial with web-based banking. The Banking 365 On-line system went live later that year. At first the bank simply allowed its customers to check how much money they had in an account or whether an expected payment had been completed. Over the following years, however, Banking 365 On-line matured from a service that delivered views of customers’ data to a service that could process their transactions.
A similar transition could be observed on other Irish web sites, in other lines of business and in public administration.
Manufacturers and retailers not only displayed their product ranges online but also added shopping carts. Passengers started to make airline reservations over the web without going through a travel agent. Language service companies began to translate customers’ text on demand. Other projects connected brokers with insurance companies over the web and delivered training courses online while keeping track of learners’ progress.
E-commerce was the new buzzword. Much of the expertise that it required came from the developers who had previously constructed static web pages and the software exporters that had created web front ends for their applications. Ireland’s e-commerce innovators included companies like Quay Financial Software, Baltimore Technologies, WBT Systems, Gradient Solutions, eWare and Network365.
Central government in Ireland had been slow to accept the internet and the civil service was a latecomer to the web. Political enthusiasm for e-commerce did, however, contribute to a favourable climate for e-government initiatives at the end of the decade.
The Office of the Revenue Commissioners moved more rapidly than other government departments, supported by a piece of legislation in 1999 that created a framework for online tax administration.
As the 1990s drew to a close the dividing line between applications software development and online service management was looking rather blurred. The new norm was a hybrid model – the dot com business. Conventional wisdom held that online services were poised to sweep aside established enterprises throughout the world and all across the commercial spectrum. The 21st century web would be the natural home for computer operations.
This aspiration eventually became actuality, but it took more time and more investment than the dot com enthusiasts of 1999 expected. Network capacities and software standards were not yet sufficiently stable or robust.
In addition, many of the resources and talents that had focused on the web since the middle of the decade were now being channelled in another direction. Mobile information services were the top attraction for investors and developers at the start of the new millennium. Web tools and methodologies kept improving. But the years of frantic evolution and expansion ended with the old century.
Last edit: September 2023
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