Traders hired 'criers' to
promote their products.

First newspaper advertisement is published
in the Boston News-letter (announcement seeking
a buyer for an Estate in Oyster Bay, Long Island).

Volney Palmer opens first advertising agency
in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Reginald Fessenden is credited with transmitting
the first radio broadcast, from Ocean Bluff-Brant
Rock, Massachusetts in December.

Public Opinion by Walter Lippman is published.
As the first book focused on the role of the media and
public relations in a democratic society, it is credited
with helping to launch the public relations profession.

Memo is written by Procter & Gamble
executive Neil McElroy, establishing the
discipline of brand management.

Up from essentially zero in 1921,
the number of U.S. homes with a radio
passes the halfway mark (55.2%).

The Communications Act of 1934 creates
the Federal Communications Commission.

Televisions are demonstrated by RCA
at the New York World's Fair.

Watchmaker Bulova pays $9 for the first
TV advertisement. It airs on New York station
WNBT before a baseball game between the
Brooklyn Dodgers and Philadelphia Phillies.

More than 50% of US households
have telephones.

TV ad revenue surpasses magazines and
radio. Televisions are now in more than
50% of homes (up from less than 1% in 1948.)

Videotape recording makes
prerecorded commercials possible.

Papert, Koenig, Lois (launched in 1960)
is the first advertising agency to go public.

The first Super Bowl brings advertising
rates of $85,000/minute on CBS and
$70,000/minute on NBC.

Cable television reaches
just 6% of households.

Ray Tomlinson sends first e-mail from one
computer to another at ARPANET in Cambridge,
MA. The message is reported as being insignificant,
something like "qwertyuiop."

Home Box Office (HBO) launches.

Micro-Soft launches after Bill Gates
and Paul Allen see an opportunity
in microcomputer software.

Supreme Court grants advertising
First Amendment protection.

Just one in five households subscribe
to cable, the same year CNN, USA Network,
Bravo and Cinemax launch.

IBM Corp. offers the IBM Personal Computer,
helping to make the desktop a standard in
the workplace and homes.

Compaq Computer Corp. introduces
the "IBM-compatible" Compaq Portable,
opening the doors for laptop and
notebook computers.

Nation's first cellphone system is
activated by Ameritech in Chicago.

The first domain is registered by
Massachusetts-based computer
manufacturer Symbolics.

Cable surpasses 50%
household penetration.
Sears and IBM bring online service
Prodigy to the public.

On November 12, the "Web" is born.

Television becomes the nation's
largest ad medium as its ad revenue
surpasses newspapers.

Interactive TV purchasing system
launches in France.

Jerry's Guide to the World Wide Web
(which later morphed into Yahoo,
"Yet Another Hierarchical Officious Oracle")
launches as the first successful search engine.

AT&T buys the first web banner
advertisement from HotWired.

Web TV Networks is founded in Palo Alto;
it is rebranded as MSN TV in 2001.

After incorporating in 1994, Jeff Bezos
opens the virtual Amazon store.

SixDegrees.Com launches, allowing
users to create profiles, add friends
and view their profiles.

Technology for Pop-Up Ads is introduced
with Netscape 2.0B3 Browser.

Google is founded.

Kingston Communication (UK) develops first
Video-on-Demand (VOD) service integrated
with broadcast TV and the Internet.

Bruce Ableson launches Open Diary,
which becomes the first blogging community
with the innovation of the comment section.

Internet World article discusses "click marrying
mortar," noting that the then-worth of Amazon
($27 billion) is three times the value of Federated
Department Stores and determines that Yahoo
(with a $47 billion market capitalization) is worth
the same amount as Disney.

Napster is shut down, leaving a sea
of independent pirates in the digital
music industry.

New media (AOL) acquires an
old media standard (Time Warner).

Supreme Court grants
advertising First Amendment
protection.

The iTunes store launches,
revolutionizing the digital
music market.

LinkedIn is launched.

Facebook is launched.

Wireless phones are now in
more than 50% of households.

YouTube is founded.

Twitter is launched.

Broadband surpasses 50% household
penetration, up from less than
2% in 1999.

Mirriam-Webster Dictionary
adds definitions for "webisode,"
"PDF" and "vlog."

Library of Congress announces
it will archive all public Tweets.

Mobile advertising spending
breaks billion-dollar mark.

U.S. audiences engage in more
than 6.2 billion viewing sessions
of online video per month.

The terms "tweet" and "retweet" are
added to the Oxford English Dictionary.
The definitions are expanded for
the terms "friend" and "follower."