New Name: AJAX

In February 2005, Jesse James Garrett published an article that created the term AJAX and moved it from something neat that Google and a couple of other cuttingedge companies were using to a technique that could be used by anyone. While many people have complained about the acronym he coined, it did get people's attention. This article began a period of widespread experimentation and implementation in the Open Source Software (OSS) and blogging communities that has made AJAX a possibility for anyone.

By 2006, developers were using AJAX in a number of exciting new applications, from online mapping sites to to-do lists and calendars. However, the driver of innovation was not the large consumer-targeted applications, but the tools that allowed AJAX to be used by developers everywhere.