The Book of the Web

A good friend and former colleague recently shared with me a copy of an ancient text that didn't make it into the Bible ... not even the Apocrypha. Although I cannot vouch for its authenticity, nor do I know who may have written it, I thought that it was important that it's story should not be lost.

In ancient Israel , it came to pass that a trader by the name of Abraham Com did take unto himself a young wife by the name of Dorothy, whom Abraham fondly called Dot. And Dot Com was a comely woman, large of frame, broad of shoulder and long of leg. Indeed, she was often called Amazon Dot Com by others. 

And Dot said unto Abraham, her husband, "Why dost thou travel so far from town to town with thy goods when thou canst trade without ever leaving thy tent?" And Abraham did look at her as though she were several saddle bags short of a camel load, but simply said, "How could that be?" And Dot replied, "I will place drums in all the towns, and drums between the towns, to send messages saying what you have for sale, and they will reply telling you who hath the best price. It will be as a spider's web, each strand linked to each other strand, so that all strands are connected. When an agreement on price has been made, you can deliver the goods by partnering with your cousin Uriah, who has a successful pony stable" (UPS).

Abraham thought long and decided he would let Dot have her way with the drums, for he loved her greatly and wished her to be happy. So the drums were put in place, and idle young persons were employed to use the drums, and the new enterprise was an immediate success. Abraham sold all the goods he had at top price without ever having to leave his tent. To prevent neighboring peoples from overhearing what the drums were saying, and thereby competing with her husband, Dot devised a system that only she and the drummers knew. It became known as Must Send Drum Over Sound (MSDOS), and she also developed a language to transmit ideas and pictures, Hebrew To The People (HTTP). And the young persons did take to Dot Com's new inventions as doth the greedy horsefly take to camel dung. They were called Nomadic Ecclesiastical Rich Dominican Sybarites, or NERDS. 

And lo, the land was so feverish with joy at the new riches and the deafening sound of drums that no one noticed that the real riches were going to the enterprising drum fabricator, William of Gates, who bought off every drum maker in the land. Indeed, he did insist on drums to be made that would work only with his own drum heads and drum sticks. And Dot did say, "Oh, Abraham, what we have started is being taken over by others." And Abraham looked out over the Bay of Ezekiel , or eBay as it came to be known. He said, "We need a name that reflects what we are." And Dot replied, "Let us call yourselves Young Ambitious Hebrew Owner Operators." "I agree, but YAHOO is shorter and easier to remember," said Abraham. And because it was Dot's idea, they named it YAHOO Dot Com. 

Another of Abraham's cousins, Joshua, being the young Gregarious Energetic Educated Kid (GEEK) that he was, soon started using Dot's drums to locate things around the countryside. It soon became known as God's Own Official Guide to Locating Everything (GOOGLE). 

And that is how it all began. And God looked upon it and saw that it was good.