Tech Facts

The first computer company to register for a domain name was Digital Equipment Corporation.

The 'Dilbert Zone' Web site was the first syndicated comic strip site available on the Internet.

Butler Jeeves of the Internet site AskJeeves.com made its debut as a large helium balloon in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade in 2000.

Sun Microsystems sponsors NetDay, an effort to wire American public schools to the Internet, with help from the US government.

In Beijing, the Internet community has coined the word 'Chortal' as a shortened version of 'Chinese portal'.

Telnet is one of the oldest forms of Internet connections. Today, it is used primarily to access online databases.

Domain names can be really sell at high prices! The most expensive domain name was 'business.com', which was bought by eCompanies for $7.5 million in 1999.

The first ever ISP was CompuServe. It still exists, under AOL Time Warner.

On an average, each person receives 26.4 e-mails a day.

Ray Tomlinson, a scientist from Cambrige, introduced electronic mail in 1972. He used the @ to distinguish between the sender's name and network name in the e-mail address.

Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) was designed in 1973.

The Apple iTunes music store was introduced in the spring of 2003. It allows people to download songs for an affordable 99 cents each.

Satyam Online become the first private ISP in December 1998 to offer Internet connections in India.

The number of UK Internet users increase by an estimated 75 percent each year.

The Internet is the third-most used advertising medium in the world, closely catching up with traditional local newspapers and Yellow Pages.

It took 13 years for television to reach 50 million users- it took the Internet less than 4 years.

As of now, there are over 260 million people with Internet access worldwide.

1 out of 6 people used the Internet in North America and Europe, as per a 1999 survey.

The average computer user blinks 7 times a minute.

In 1946, the Merriam Webster Dictionary defined computer as 'a person who tabulates numbers; accountant; actuary; bookkeeper.'

An estimated 2.5 billion hours were wasted online last year as people waited for pages to download, according to a study sponsored by Nortel Networks.

AOL says spam is the number one complaint of its customers, and that it has to block over one billion unsolicited e-mails every day.

In 2002, the average Internet user received 3.7 spam messages per day. The total rose to 6.2 spam messages per day in 2002. By 2007, it is expected to reach 830 messages per day.

A terminology industry research firm called Basex says that unsolicited e-mail cost $ 20 billion in lost time and expenses worldwide in 2000.

In 2003 an Atlanta- base ISP called Earthlink won a lawsuit worth $16.4 million (US) against a spammer in Buffalo NY, and a $25 million (US) lawsuit against a spammer in Tennessee.