Broad Band: The Untold Story of the Women Who Made the Internet

Broad Band: The Untold Story of the Women Who Made the Internet by Claire L. Evans

From Ada Lovelace to today, many women have been involved in the development of the internet. Early "computers" were women that did calculations. Later it was women that fed the programs to computers. In the age of the internet, women were very involved in hypertext and social networks. The book touches a few of the key areas of female involvement. The book inadvertently shows how insignificant the female achievements were. There were girl game companies, design houses and other companies that popped out for a bit, but flamed out before making a significant impact. On the academic side, Lovelace was ahead of her time, yet there were limited significant academic advancements. 

The story of hypertext is interesting. The hypertext of the world wide web is an inferior form that lacks many of the strengths of hypertext, yet it is what has caught on. We still deal with "dead links" due to the lack of two-way linkages. Perhaps we just had to have something that was more simple to serve as the base for something broader. Is this part of the challenge of female involvement? Some of the companies like "women portals" had high-brow goals, but ended up going general. The women-centric ended up going out of favor in favor of the more general.