If you have any interest in the history of the internet, or more specifically the World Wide Web (unless you remember the days of bulletin boards and Compuserve, the two terms are probably synonymous), then an article I recently found may well be of interest to you. It details the battles fought over the need for standards in the days of early web sites and browsers. Check the Business Week link for the full run down, however it basically explains how Microsoft’s Internet Explorer and Netscape browser were very incompatible at the beginning, which lead to the ridiculous situation of web sites having to be designed, hosted, and of course paid for, in duplicate. Although the comments indicate that some in this field believe Zeldman (the subject of the article) receives too much glory, the story behind the creation of standards is of interest. To me at least, hopefully others won’t fall asleep after the 1st page ;-P