Louis J. Montulli II (best known as Lou Montulli) is a computer programmer who is well known for his work in producing

web browser A web browser is application software for accessing websites. When a user requests a web page from a particular website, the browser retrieves its files from a web server and then displays the page on the user's screen. Browsers are used on ...

s. In 1991 and 1992, he co-authored a text web browser called

Lynx A lynx is a type of wild cat. Lynx may also refer to: Astronomy * Lynx (constellation) * Lynx (Chinese astronomy) * Lynx X-ray Observatory, a NASA-funded mission concept for a next-generation X-ray space observatory Places Canada * Lynx, Ontar ...

, with Michael Grobe and Charles Rezac, while he was at the

University of Kansas The University of Kansas (KU) is a public research university with its main campus in Lawrence, Kansas, United States, and several satellite campuses, research and educational centers, medical centers, and classes across the state of Kansas. Tw ...

. This web browser was one of the first available and is still in use today.

Career

In 1994, he became a founding engineer of

Netscape Communications Netscape Communications Corporation (originally Mosaic Communications Corporation) was an American independent computer services company with headquarters in Mountain View, California and then Dulles, Virginia. Its Netscape web browser was onc ...

and programmed the networking code for the first versions of the Netscape web browser. He was also responsible for several browser innovations, such as

HTTP cookie HTTP cookies (also called web cookies, Internet cookies, browser cookies, or simply cookies) are small blocks of data created by a web server while a user is browsing a website and placed on the user's computer or other device by the user's w ...

s, the

blink element The blink element is a non-standard HTML element that indicates to a user agent (generally a web browser) that the page author intends the content of the element to blink (that is, alternate between being visible and invisible). The element was ...

server push Push technology or server push is a style of Internet-based communication where the request for a given transaction is initiated by the publisher or central server. It is contrasted with pull/get, where the request for the transmission of informat ...

and client pull, HTTP proxying, and encouraging the implementation of

animated GIFs The Graphics Interchange Format (GIF; or , see pronunciation) is a bitmap image format that was developed by a team at the online services provider CompuServe led by American computer scientist Steve Wilhite and released on 15 June 1987. ...

into the browser. While at Netscape, he also was a founding member of the HTML

working group A working group, or working party, is a group of experts working together to achieve specified goals. The groups are domain-specific and focus on discussion or activity around a specific subject area. The term can sometimes refer to an interdis ...

at the

W3C The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is the main international standards organization for the World Wide Web. Founded in 1994 and led by Tim Berners-Lee, the consortium is made up of member organizations that maintain full-time staff working to ...

and was a contributing author of the HTML 3.2 specification. He is one of only six inductees in the

World Wide Web Hall of Fame In its most general sense, the term "world" refers to the totality of entities, to the whole of reality or to everything that is. The nature of the world has been conceptualized differently in different fields. Some conceptions see the worl ...

announced at the

First International Conference on the World-Wide Web The First International Conference on the World-Wide Web (also known as WWW1) was the first-ever conference about the World Wide Web, and the first meeting of what became the International World Wide Web Conference. It was held on May 25 to 27, ...

in 1994. In 1998, he became a founding engineer of

Epinions Epinions.com was a general consumer review site established in 1999. Epinions was acquired in 2003 by DealTime, later Shopping.com, which was acquired by eBay in 2005. Epinions users could access reviews about a variety of items. On 25 March 2014 ...

which is now a Shopping.com company. In 2002, he was named to the

MIT Technology Review ''MIT Technology Review'' is a bimonthly magazine wholly owned by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and editorially independent of the university. It was founded in 1899 as ''The Technology Review'', and was re-launched without "The" in ...

TR100 The Innovators Under 35 is a peer-reviewed annual award and listicle published by ''MIT Technology Review'' magazine, naming the world's top 35 innovators under the age of 35. at ''Technology Review'' with lists of winners at technologyreview.com ...

as one of the top 100 innovators in the world under the age of 35. In 2004, he became co-founder and CEO of Memory Matrix, which was acquired by Shutterfly Inc. in May 2005. Montulli served as Vice President of Client Engineering at Shutterfly through the summer of 2007. In 2008, he became co-founder of Zetta.net, a cloud storage company. In 2015, he joined JetInsight as co-founder and CTO. In 2022, he was recognized among Hidden Heroes for his significant technology contribution, including the

and

Ongoing projects

While working on the Netscape browser, Montulli built the

Fishcam Fishcam refers to a broadcast consisting of a video camera pointed at a fish tank. Australia Channel 31 Melbourne, Australia, had one of the more famous and long-lasting fishcams. The Fishcam itself was originally used as a replacement to the m ...

, one of the earliest

live Live may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Films * ''Live!'' (2007 film), 2007 American film * ''Live'' (2014 film), a 2014 Japanese film *'' ''Live'' (Apocalyptica DVD) Music *Live (band), American alternative rock band * List of albums ...

image websites (ie. live as in broadcasting), famously built into early versions of the Netscape browser as the Fishcam

Easter egg Easter eggs, also called Paschal eggs, are eggs that are decorated for the Christian feast of Easter, which celebrates the resurrection of Jesus. As such, Easter eggs are common during the season of Eastertide (Easter season). The oldest tr ...

. The company Netscape hosted this fishcam until long after they were no longer Netscape. After a short hiatus, in 2009 it found a new host; it is still one of the longest (nearly) continuously running live websites.

References

External links

Lou Montulli's Personal Web Page

Montulli's first conversion to HTML page for WWW-VL {{DEFAULTSORT:Montulli, Lou Living people Year of birth missing (living people) Place of birth missing (living people) Netscape people University of Kansas alumni Computer programmers

Career

Ongoing projects

See also

References

External links