Vannevar Bush, 1950.

Pre-1970s

1945: Vannevar Bush describes the first hypertext system in “As We May Think” (the Memex) in The Atlantic Monthly

1946: ENIAC, the first general purpose computer, revealed to the public

1953: Harley Tillet implements the first online information retrieval system for the U.S. Navy

1962: John Horty demonstrates early legal retrieval service at University of Pittsburgh

1967: Ohio State Bar contracts with Data Corporation in 1967 to develop a full text retrieval system

1969: CompuServe founded as Compu-Serv Network, setting the stage for consumer online services

Ted Turner, 1985.

1980s

1980: CNN launches

1981: IBM PC launches with MS-DOS and Intel 8088 processor

1981: Four major New York banks begin “home banking” experiments

1982: USA Today debuts as a national newspaper

1982: The Weather Channel launches

1983: Knight Ridder launches Viewtron

1983: Short-lived Time Teletext experiment launches

1983: Motorola DynaTAC 8000x, the first commercial cell phone, debuts

1985: Quantum Computing (later AOL) founded

1985: The WELL founded by Stewart Brand and Larry Brilliant

1985: MIT Media Lab evolves out of Architecture Machine Group

1986: Newspaper videotex experiments (Viewtron, Gateway, others) fade away

1989: Tim Berners-Lee writes proposal for World Wide Web

Twitter cofounders Biz Stone and Ev Williams, 2009.

2000s

2000: AOL acquires Time Warner as new decade dawns

2000: The dot-com bust; traditional media retreats

2001: AOL Time Warner merger flops; CEO Gerald M. Levin resigns

2001: Apple introduces iTunes

2002: Google News founded

2003: LinkedIn launched

2004: Google IPO, Facebook and Digg launch

2004: Tim O’Reilly describes “Web 2.0”

2004: Dow Jones buys MarketWatch

2005: Huffington Post and YouTube launch

2005: News Corp. buys MySpace; NYT Co. buys About.com

2006: Twitter, BuzzFeed launch; Google acquires YouTube

2006: McClatchy acquires Knight Ridder for $3.3 billion

2007: News Corp. acquires Dow Jones for $5.6 billion

2007: Sam Zell acquires Tribune Company for $8.2 billion; declares bankruptcy in 2008

2007: Politico founded; Google acquires DoubleClick; Tumblr launches

2007: iPhone debuts, launching the era of apps

2008: CBS buys CNET Networks

2008: Financial collapse and recession send print media companies reeling

2009: Steve Brill and Gordon Crovitz start Journalism Online (now Press+) to enable digital subscriptions