Submitted via IRC for Bytram
A few days before Hurricane Irma hit South Florida, I received a query on Twitter from a graphic designer named Eric Bailey.
"Has anyone researched news sites capability to provide low-bandwidth communication of critical info during crisis situations?" he asked.
The question was timely — two days later, CNN announced that they created a text-only version of their site with no ads or videos.
The same week, NPR began promoting its text-only site, text.npr.org on social media as a way for people with limited Internet connectivity during Hurricane Irma to receive updated information.
These text-only sites — which used to be more popular in the early days of the Internet, when networks were slower and bandwidth was at a premium – are incredibly useful, and not just during natural disasters. They load much faster, don't contain any pop-ups or ads or autoplay videos, and help people with low bandwidth or limited Internet access. They're also beneficial for people with visual impairments who use screen readers to navigate the Internet. (Related: Designing Journalism Products for Accessibility.)
Source: https://www.poynter.org/news/text-only-news-sites-are-slowly-making-comeback-heres-why
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Tuesday December 26 2017, @07:09PM
The timeline is not entirely clear on that page, but it says that the first online news on the World Wide Web was Nando. And on the Page about Nando [wikipedia.org] it says the web site was added in 1994.
Thus I conclude that in 1992 there was no general news on the WWW.
Also note that WWW != Internet (even today), and Internet != online (at least historically).
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.