<P> During the first decade or so of the public internet, the immense changes it would eventually enable in the 2000s were still nascent . In terms of providing context for this period, mobile cellular devices ("smartphones" and other cellular devices) which today provide near - universal access, were used for business and not a routine household item owned by parents and children worldwide . Social media in the modern sense had yet to come into existence, laptops were bulky and most households did not have computers . Data rates were slow and most people lacked means to video or digitize video so websites such as YouTube did not yet exist, media storage was transitioning slowly from analog tape to digital optical discs (DVD and to an extent still, floppy disc to CD). Enabling technologies used from the early 2000s such as PHP, modern Javascript and Java, technologies such as AJAX, HTML 4 (and its emphasis on CSS), and various software frameworks, which enabled and simplified speed of web development, largely awaited invention and their eventual widespread adoption . </P> <P> The Internet was widely used for mailing lists, emails, e-commerce and early popular online shopping (Amazon and eBay for example), online forums and bulletin boards, and personal websites and blogs, and use was growing rapidly, but by more modern standards the systems used were static and lacked widespread social engagement . It awaited a number of events in the early 2000s to change from a communications technology to gradually develop into a key part of global society's infrastructure . </P> <P> Typical design elements of these "Web 1.0" era websites included: Static pages instead of dynamic HTML; content served from filesystems instead of relational databases; pages built using Server Side Includes or CGI instead of a web application written in a dynamic programming language; HTML 3.2 - era structures such as frames and tables to create page layouts; online guestbooks; overuse of GIF buttons and similar small graphics promoting particular items; and HTML forms sent via email . (Support for server side scripting was rare on shared servers so the usual feedback mechanism was via email, using mailto forms and their email program . </P> <P> During the period 1997 to 2001, the first speculative investment bubble related to the Internet took place, in which "dot - com" companies (referring to the ". com" top level domain used by businesses) were propelled to exceedingly high valuations as investors rapidly stoked stock values, followed by a market crash; the first dot - com bubble . However this only temporarily slowed enthusiasm and growth, which quickly recovered and continued to grow . </P>

Arpanet and internet history of the world wide web