The Last Page of the Internet

According to sources from Internet Growth Statistics the size of the Internet has increased a hundred-fold since its inception in 1995. As of March 2009, this fascinating medium caters to a little under a quarter of the world population.

In terms of navigability, the Internet is a bit like the Universe, with no known begining or end (I speak here purely in terms of three dimensional nature of the universe. Of course there was the Big-Bang, but that involves the fourth dimension). This has led to several people come up with the concept of a 'last page on the Internet'.

Of course there can never really be a last page on the Internet, since navigation on the World-Wide-Web is not continuous but discrete. Nothing prevents you from opening a different page on your browser and start elsewhere. These 'last pages' are nothing but spoofs, some with really innovative presentations.

My first encounter with a 'last page' was sometime back in 2002. The site URL was (and still is) http://www.wwwdotcom.com. Note that there is actually no sitename,  like the 'Google' in google.com. Though not the oldest 'last page' in existence (the site seems to have been formed on 19th July 2002) it is still very popular with people looking for the end of the Internet.

So What Does a Last Page Look Like?

Barring minor (and often interesting) variations, all 'Internet last pages' look similiar in terms of content and navigability. Some of these common traits are as follows:

1. Most pages hog a whole domain name by themselves with quite intuitive domain names, e.g. http://thelastpageontheinternet.com. Within the domain, the only page available is usually the last page itself.
2. The messaging is almost always uniform: "You have reached the last page of the Internet and can go no further. Close your machine and get on with your life. To start with, go outside and play."
3. The page itself is usually plain and extremely lightweight with mostly textual content no fancy graphics.
4. The number of links leading away from the page is absolutely minimal. Some pages have no link at all. This is understandable since you cannot go any further.
5. A few 'last pages' include a link to a 'first page on the Internet' which is another spoof page, usually sharing the same domain name as the last page.

The Oldest Last Page

As per my research, the oldest among all such 'last Internet pages' was created around 2nd February 2000 and was available at http://home.att.net/~cecw/lastpage.htm. Unfortunately, this page no longer exist. The oldest page still in existence is at http://my.voyager.net/~duffie/lastpage.htm and was created around 9th June 2000.

Yet another nice oldie is called "Turn Off the Internet" created sometime around 13th September 2000. The interesting thing about this site is the interactivity it provides. The site is not only the end of the internet, but ostensibly allows you to turn the whole internet off when you are done. The page fetaures just the image of a switch that can be pressed (animations supported) to popup a second page that says: "You have now safely shutdown the Internet." This is reminiscent of the shutdown messages in Windows 98/NT which were the popular operating systems in those days.

Variations To Being the Last

The site at http://www.zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.org/index-.php (yes, there are 63 'z's) claims to be the last website on the Internet alphabetically. A really interesting (and perfectly valid) twist to the concept of being 'last'.

The site at http://attrition.org/misc/stl.html claims to be the second to last page on the Internet. One more click (link available on the site) and you have seen it all.

The All New Last Page of the Internet, created around 3rd June 2002, includes a hit counter which shows me to be visitor number 101244 to the page.

The site at http://www.dlc.co.in provides a link to download the whole of the Internet. Not only have you seen it all, but you can also now own a private copy of all that you have seen (or missed).

The message on the site http://www.lastpageoftheinternet.net is slightly off-beat. It says: "Now would be a good time to hit back on your browser ... before your computer falls off the end of the Internet and breaks!"

Wikipedia Says

Surprisingly, Wikipedia does not have anything to offer on the last page of the Internet. There used to be one, but that article has since been removed because of ambiguity and lack of reliable sources. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/The_last_page_of_the_Internet_(2nd_nomination) for more details. Instead, there is a last page (http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/The_last_page) that is purportedly the end of the Wikipedia content itself.