The Technical and Social History of Software Engineering

Chapter 8. 1990 to 1999: Expansion of the World Wide Web and the Rise of Dot-Coms

During the 1990s, the rapid expansion of the internet and the World Wide Web changed human communications and social life forever. New companies began to emerge and carve out new kinds of markets by selling products remotely over the web.

The exuberance and excitement of vast new global markets based on the internet led to an enormous explosion of companies and products marketed over the web by companies termed dot-coms. They were known as dot-coms because their website addresses ended in a period followed by the term “com,” which was the official web term for commerce.

Early in the next decade, the dot-coms bubble would burst, and many of these new companies disappeared ...