The Archie search engine, introduced in September 1990, was the world’s first Internet search engine and indexed downloadable files on public FTP servers.

The first webcam went online at the University of Cambridge in 1993, showing a live feed of the Trojan Room coffee pot.

Symbolics.com became the very first .com domain name, registered on March 15, 1985.

On May 3, 1978, Gary Thuerk of DEC sent the first spam email over ARPANET.

Ray Tomlinson sent the first email between computers in 1971 on ARPANET, introducing the “@” symbol.

The STS-43 Space Shuttle crew sent the first email from space on August 9, 1991, using AppleLink on a Macintosh Portable.

As of mid-2025, there are approximately 8 billion email accounts worldwide, exceeding the global population.

Jean Armour Polly, an American librarian, coined the term “surfing the Internet” in June 1992.

Jack Dorsey posted the first tweet — “just setting up my twttr” — on March 21, 2006, marking Twitter’s launch.

The first YouTube video, “Me at the zoo,” was uploaded by Jawed Karim on April 23, 2005.

Baby Shark Dance by Pinkfong is the most-viewed YouTube video of all time, with over 15 billion views as of mid-2025. 

Despacito by Luis Fonsi ft. Daddy Yankee is the second-most-viewed video, with approximately 8.7 billion views. 

“Wheels on the Bus” (Cocomelon) has over 7.7 billion views; “Bath Song” (Cocomelon) over 7.2 billion; “Johny Johny Yes Papa” (LooLoo Kids) over 7.0 billion; “See You Again” over 6.7 billion; “Shape of You” over 6.5 billion. 

Since 2017, music videos have dominated YouTube’s top views; Baby Shark was the first to reach 10 billion views in January 2022.

As of 2025, YouTube sees over 500 hours of video uploaded per minute and more than 1 billion hours watched per day globally. 

YouTube accounts for around 16% of global internet traffic as of 2024. 

YouTube had ~2.5 billion monthly active users as of April 2025. 

During COVID lockdowns in 2020, YouTube temporarily reduced video quality worldwide by 25% to ease bandwidth demand. 

YouTube removed public dislike counts in November 2021 to reduce harassment and brigading. 

YouTube introduced vertical “Shorts” up to 3 minutes long in November 2024. 

As of June 2025, China had ~1.12 billion internet users, compared with ~322 million in the U.S., making China the largest online population globally.

Google was originally called Backrub in 1996, referencing its method of analyzing backlinks.

The name “Google” comes from a misspelling of googol, a 1 followed by 100 zeros.

Google handles over 8.5 billion searches per day as of 2025.

The first Google Doodle, in 1998, honored the Burning Man Festival.

Google’s unofficial motto “Don’t be evil” was included in its 2004 IPO prospectus.

In 2006, “google” was officially added to the Oxford English Dictionary as a verb meaning “to search online.”

The “I’m Feeling Lucky” button bypasses search results and costs Google millions annually in lost ad revenue.

Google Maps, launched in 2005, covers more than 220 countries and territories.

Google Street View cars have driven over 10 million miles worldwide.

The first YouTube video monetized by ads was a Nike commercial featuring Ronaldinho in 2005.

Amazon started as an online bookstore in 1994.

Jeff Bezos wanted to name Amazon “Cadabra,” but changed it after someone misheard it as “cadaver.”

The first item sold on Amazon was a book titled “Fluid Concepts and Creative Analogies”.

The first item ever sold on eBay was a broken laser pointer, purchased for $14.83.

PayPal was originally created as a money-transfer service for Palm Pilots in 1998.

Cyber Monday, coined in 2005, is one of the biggest online shopping days worldwide.

In 2019, Amazon’s “Prime Day” generated more sales than Black Friday and Cyber Monday combined.

Alibaba’s Singles’ Day (Nov 11) is the world’s largest online shopping event, surpassing $130 billion in sales in 2023.

Shopify powers over 4 million businesses worldwide as of 2025.

By 2025, e-commerce makes up about 24% of global retail sales.

The first computer virus designed for MS-DOS, Brain, was created in 1986 by two brothers in Pakistan.

The first major internet worm, the Morris Worm, was released in 1988 and infected about 10% of ARPANET.

“Phishing” scams were first documented in the 1990s with AOL users.

In 2013, Yahoo disclosed what remains the largest data breach ever, affecting 3 billion accounts.

Password “123456” has topped lists of the most common passwords for years, despite repeated warnings.

The first chatbot, ELIZA, was created in 1966 at MIT.

IBM’s Deep Blue defeated world chess champion Garry Kasparov in 1997.

In 2011, IBM’s Watson beat Jeopardy champions Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter.

Google’s AlphaGo beat world Go champion Lee Sedol in 2016.

ChatGPT, an AI chatbot launched in 2022, gained 1 million users in just 5 days.

By 2025, AI is estimated to contribute over $15 trillion to the global economy.

Over 70% of companies worldwide now use AI in some form.

Deepfakes, powered by AI, first emerged around 2017 and sparked global concerns over misinformation.

AI is now used to generate music, art, and even movies — blurring the line between human and machine creativity.

AI assistants like Siri, Alexa, and Google Assistant are used by billions of people daily.

The first meme shared online was the “Dancing Baby” in 1996.

The word “meme” itself was coined by biologist Richard Dawkins in 1976.

Nyan Cat, a viral pixelated GIF with a rainbow trail, was created in 2011.

“Rickrolling” — tricking someone into watching Rick Astley’s video — became a massive prank trend in 2007.

The first viral YouTube video was “Evolution of Dance” (2006).

PewDiePie became the first individual YouTuber to surpass 100 million subscribers in 2019.

TikTok, launched internationally in 2017, became the most downloaded app in the world by 2020.

The term “selfie” became so popular that it was added to the Oxford Dictionary in 2013.

The most-liked photo on Instagram is an image of an egg, posted in 2019 to beat Kylie Jenner’s record.

Reddit, launched in 2005, is nicknamed “the front page of the internet.”

In 1999, the domain business.com was sold for $7.5 million — one of the first big internet domain sales.

The longest domain name ever used was 63 characters long, the maximum allowed.

The internet weighs about the same as a strawberry, if you calculate the electrons in motion.

More than 4.5 billion people worldwide now use the internet daily.

The average person spends over 6 hours per day online.

Google processes over 8.5 billion searches every day.

Over 500 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute.

TikTok users spend an average of 95 minutes per day on the app.

Instagram has over 2 billion monthly active users.

Facebook is still the most popular social media platform with nearly 3 billion users.

WhatsApp handles more than 100 billion messages daily.

Over 60% of global internet traffic now comes from mobile devices.

By 2025, the total number of connected IoT devices will surpass 75 billion.

More than 90% of the world’s data has been created in just the past 2 years.

Streaming platforms like Netflix account for over 15% of global internet bandwidth.

The term “phishing” was first used in 1996.

Around 30,000 websites are hacked every day.

The largest data breach in history exposed 3 billion Yahoo accounts in 2013.

The first computer virus for MS-DOS, called Brain, appeared in 1986.

The dark web makes up about 5% of the total internet.

Cryptocurrency transactions are a major driver of dark web activity.

Ransomware attacks cost businesses over $20 billion annually.

Strong, unique passwords are still one of the best defenses against cybercrime.

Two-factor authentication (2FA) is now widely used to prevent account takeovers.

The most common password in the world is still 123456.

SpaceX’s Starlink project aims to bring internet access to the entire planet via satellites.

5G technology can reach speeds up to 100 times faster than 4G.

By 2030, experts predict nearly 90% of the global population will be online.

Virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) are expected to become standard for education, shopping, and entertainment.

Quantum computing may revolutionize internet security within the next decade.