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1996 In February a dedication site for the Euro’96 competition is launched, Eurosoccer.com In October the Guardian launches Shift Control as a weekly webzine sponsored by Whitbread. In the same month RecruitNet is launched placing Guardian recruitment advertisements on the internet for the first time. 1997 The Guardian and Observer election website goes live in February and football.co.uk is launched in August. 1999 The Guardian Unlimited network of websites is launched in January 1999 comprising News Unlimited, Football Unlimited, Cricket Unlimited and Jobs Unlimited. Later additions to the network include Film Unlimited, Education, Books, Shopping and Money. In September 1999 the site registers one million users. The first official ABCe statistics in October identify Guardian Unlimited as having 10.2 million page impressions a month. 2000 Guardian Unlimited wins best design for an interactive newspaper at the prestigious US Eppy Awards, and best newspaper on the web in the Newspaper Society Awards. News Unlimited is named online news service of the year at the British Press Awards. Observer.co.uk and mediaguardian.co.uk are launched. The network is extended with rebranding across all the GU websites. In April the Guardian Weblog is launched – the Guardian’s first blog In November the Guardian is the first media owner to carry an advertising campaign across all its platforms, from print to PDA. 2001 In January Guardian Unlimited announces branding strategy and major marketing investment, and in February Guardian Unlimited’s URL changes from guardianunlimited.co.uk to guardian.co.uk. In April Guardian Unlimited’s first ever TV advertising campaign is launched and in the same month GU becomes the UK’s most popular newspaper website with 30.2 million page impressions and 2.4 million unique users. 2002 Guardian Unlimited launches five SMS mobile phone services, News Alerts, Media Alerts, Politics Alerts, Football Shots and Goal Alerts. GU wins best online daily newspaper for the fourth year running at the Newspaper Society Awards. 2003 Guardian Unlimited introduces paid for services for an advertisement-free version of the website; crosswords; the Wrap (email daily digest of the UK papers); and the Informer (email lunchtime round up of the day’s news and a preview of the next day’s paper). 2004 Digital editions of the Guardian and The Observer are launched in March, allowing access to articles, images and adverts as they appeared in print, through a web-based interface developed by the GU in-house team. In July the Soulmates dating service interactive website goes live. 2005 Guardian Unlimited wins the best newspaper category at the 9th annual Webby Awards. 2006 Comment is Free is launched with the aim of providing ‘an open-ended space for debate, dispute, argument and agreement and to invite users to comment on everything they read’. The Guardian switches to a ‘web-first’ approach to foreign and city news – posting it to the web as soon as it has been written, edited and subbed. 2007 Guardian Unlimited undergoes a redesign of the whole site with interactive content, images, graphics and video given greater importance. 2008 Guardian Unlimited is rebranded guardian.co.uk. ABCe figures reveal that guardian.co.uk is the first UK newspaper website to break 20 million unique users a month. 2009 A Guardian App for iPhone and iPodtouch is launched and is downloaded nearly 70,000 times in its first month. Guardian.co.uk is named best newspaper website at the 2009 Webby Awards – the fourth time in five years that the website has won the category at the prestigious awards. In October a brand new environment website is launched – EnvironmentGuardian.co.uk. 2010 In March Guardian.co.uk launches a new-look front page. In May a new section of the website is launched to pioneer a new interactive approach to law coverage at guardian.co.uk/law and in September a new site is set up to help focus the world’s attention on global development. 

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