A guide to CNET's Facebook Timeline

Since CNET's founding in 1994, we have brought you all the best from the world of tech. We've seen tech titans rise and fall (and rise again), we've reviewed countless groundbreaking products and spectacular duds, and we've watched consumer tech evolve from a niche industry to a central part of our everyday lives.

Now there's a new way to reacquaint yourself with tech history: CNET's Facebook Timeline.

We've been hard at work updating our Timeline with all the top highlights from the last 18 years of tech. Everything from Yahoo's IPO in 1996 to AOL buying Netscape for $4.2 billion to the dot-com bust to the incredibly rapid adoption of broadband to flying cars (please? hopefully?).

You can chart Apple's rise over the past 15 years, from Steve Jobs rejoining Apple and his promotion to interim CEO, to the first iMac, to the iPod (which arrived to mixed reviews), to iTunes, the iPhone, the iPad, and Jobs' untimely death in 2011.

You can trace Microsoft from the launch of Windows 98 to the rise of Steve Ballmer to pesky antitrust court battles to product hits like the Xbox to missteps like YouTube competitor Soapbox, before 2009 brought the trifecta of Bing, Windows 7, and previews of IE9.

There were plenty of laughably dubious predictions, from Michael Dell suggesting in 1997 that Apple should close up shop and return shareholder money just three weeks after Steve Jobs returned as CEO to claims that sites can't survive providing free content...in 2001 (sound familiar?). And there were plenty of eerily prescient columns too, from Bill Joy warning about unchecked technology and terrorism in the months leading up to 9/11 to CNET's prediction that 2003 and the launch of iTunes would be the year that redefined the music industry.

The best way to enjoy CNET's Timeline is go to http://facebook.com/CNET and begin exploring. On the right side of the page, you'll see a list of years. Click on one of those, and you'll be taken to the highlights from that particular year. You can drill down into particular months and see more stories, or scan through to see only the highlights.

Or just go to the page, and keep scrolling down.

Don't miss the first screenshot of what CNET looked like in 1995 (you may need to shield your eyes) and Ryan Seacrest hosting a show on CNET TV in 1997.

There are plenty more gems waiting to be uncovered, and if you like CNET on Facebook, you'll get all our latest updates delivered straight to your news feed.