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 o ...
s. In 1991 and 1992, he co-authored a text web browser called
Lynx, with Michael Grobe and Charles Rezac, while he was at the
University of Kansas. 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 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 cookies, 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 in ...
,
server push and
client pull,
HTTP proxying, and encouraging the implementation of
animated GIFs 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 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 announced at the
First International Conference on the World-Wide Web 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 201 ...
which is now a
Shopping.com
Shopping.com is a price comparison service owned by eBay and operates websites in USA, United Kingdom, France, Germany and Australia. Shopping.com started out with the name DealTime.com which still operates as a related, but otherwise separate ...
company.
In 2002, he was named to the
MIT Technology Review 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
Zetta is an American company specializing in cloud-based backup and disaster recovery for small and mid-sized businesses, enterprises, and MSPs.
Products
Zetta provides cloud backup and disaster recovery services, on-premises backup and archivi ...
, 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
HTTP cookie and
Lynx.
Ongoing projects
While working on the Netscape browser, Montulli built the
Fishcam, one of the earliest
live image websites (ie. live as in broadcasting), famously built into early versions of the Netscape browser as the Fishcam
Easter egg.
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.
See also
*
List of programmers
This is a list of programmers notable for their contributions to software, either as original author or architect, or for later additions. All entries must already have associated articles.
A
* Michael Abrash – program optimization and x86 ...
References
External links
Lou Montulli's Personal Web PageMontulli'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