I recently visited the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, CA, and it got me thinking about our progression to where we are today with business websites. Just like the internet, the Computer History Museum has way more information than one can take in on one visit. A plethora of words and images relate computing back for thousands of years. Current day computing differs from the old with the invention of electricity and the like. They even have a Software room that is filled with gaming and of course a whole section on Photoshop.

My visit to the museum made me wonder about the rather short history of small business websites.

In 1992, there was a law passed by Congress that may be what made it possible for us to build business websites and advertise our business on the internet. It was called the Scientific Advanced Technology Act.   This act freed the web from government, and a few years later regulations were relaxed for institutions. Commercial internet was born. In 1995, Amazon started Napster, a music sharing program, and morphed the music industry in 1999. Now people could share files in addition to researching information on the world wide web. Still, at that time, very few small businesses had their own website. With the advent of file sharing, now business sites were more than just a portfolio of services. Getting rid of dial-up internet made everything faster. More and more people were working from home, and setting up internet service in their home office. Kids started playing video games on the computer. The internet became a household need, just like a phone. Businesses could not deny the ability to market their products online. Then we went mobile.

iPhones fostered mobile business, and in 2015, Google started the push to mobile-friendly websites by only ranking sites that were created with phones in mind. This was the impetus for thousands of companies to update not the only site but their whole identity. Now it is expected that users can search sites on their phone and companies need to rank well to be found.

So here we are. I am typing a blog for 360 WEB DESIGNS, a web design company that sells its services on the internet. What will be the next new evolution of the internet for business?