CNN.com today has a supereb recap of Internet history combined with many interesting charts and stats.

I was particularly interested in the "history" section of the report. The writer mentions Jean Armour Polly in 1992 coining the term "surfing the Internet." Jean wrote for my old Meckler Publishing Corporation back in those days and we were in the thick of reporting on the beginnins of the Internet. Jean's creating the term in 1992 is quite amazing because there was no World Wide Web in 1992 -surfing as we know it today had to wait at least two more years.

I believe the report has another historical error when it states that the first ad on the Internet was created by ATT and Zima. I am quite certain that the first ad on the Net was from Lufthansa Airlines. The ad was run on Jeff Dearth's Electronic Newsstand then owned by The New Republic.

I would have added another tidbit to this historical presentation. In January 1992 I ran a trade show called "Electronic Publishing and Networking." The next year the show's name was changed to "Internet World." The keynote speaker at the January show was Mitch Kapor. Many people do not remember Mitch, but he was the founder of Lotus. During his keynote he coined the concept that the Internet worked in "dog years" or that the Internet was changing or growing at a rate of 7 years for every actual year. Mitch also predicted at that show many of the things that actually happened. I think Mitch understood the future of the Internet more than any other person back in 1992.

Take a look at the CNN report. Quite a good read.