The growth of the web
The first world-wide-web software was created in 1990 by Tim Berners-Lee. He developed a web browser, named appropriately ‘WorldWideWeb’ 
, that allowed WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) editing and viewing of world-wide-web documents including pictures. The software was released to the public in 1991, beginning a new wave of innovation.
WorldWideWeb, c.1993
Source: Image taken from The WorldWideWeb browser 
Image copyright © World Wide Web Consortium All Rights Reserved.
Also in 1990, the first non-computing device was connected to the internet. The Internet Toaster had one control: to turn the power on. The darkness of the toast was controlled by how long the power was kept on. However, a human still had to insert the bread. This was rectified the following year with a robotic arm, also controllable over the internet.
In 1991, the number of internet hosts had grown to more than 600,000 as web browsers took off. Apple Computers released their first version of Quicktime which allowed people to view movies across the newly created world-wide-web, and the first webcam was created, the Trojan Room Coffee Machine .
The acceptable use policy for the internet was changed to allow commercial traffic as well as educational, prompting the first wave of companies to begin moving online.
By 1992, there were over a million computers connected to the internet. This doubled to over two million in 1993, the same year in which the White House and United Nations were connected. However, there were still only around 50 websites in the world, with other internet content accessible via the older Archie and Gopher text systems.
Around the same time, ‘surfing the net’ and ‘netizen’ were introduced as terms describing approaches to using the internet.
The first web browser to become truly popular was NCSA Mosaic , released in 1993. Developed by Marc Andreessen and others, who were the founders of Netscape , Mosaic was available for Microsoft Windows, the Macintosh and on Unix systems, making it available to a much wider public.
Netscape's first browser was released in 1994 and rapidly grew to be the dominant web browser used around the world. In the same year the number of internet hosts grew to more than three million and the web grew by more than 341,000 per cent . The first online bank, ‘First Virtual’ opened . It was also reported that more than 2,000 domain names were being registered each month.
As the web started to grow, it became more difficult to find all of the new websites. There was a need for a searchable index to the web. Two university students, Filo and Jerry Yang, started a web directory to keep track of their personal interests and websites they found interesting. Originally named "Jerry and David's Guide to the World Wide Web", they later changed this to Yahoo , an acronym for "Yet Another Hierarchical Officious Oracle". By the end of 1994, Yahoo was receiving more than 100,000 unique visitors each month.
In 1995 Microsoft launched Microsoft Internet Explorer to compete against Netscape while Sun Microsystems launched Java , a programming language originally designed for mobile devices. Java was designed to create programs very small in size for devices with limited memory – this made it ideal for fast downloading over the internet. Java is now used widely for web applications and games. The term internet was defined for the first time, while the number of internet hosts grew to more than four million.
Yahoo incorporated and sourced millions of dollars from private investors, expanding their directory in preparation for listing on the stock market.
At the same time, all internet infrastructure in Australia was handed over to Telstra's control, including management of all international connections. Other ISPs such as Optus and Connect.com rapidly developed network connections to other countries to maintain their competitiveness.
Also in 1995 the Telegarden launched, allowing internet users with green thumbs to plant, water and monitor seedlings using an industrial robot arm controlled over the web.