Launch editor Tony Delamothe and former editor Richard Smith discuss the website's early days and how the internet transformed doctors reading habits. They are joined by John Sack, founding director of HighWire Press, the scholarly publishing platform which has hosted bmj.com since 1998.
"The arrival of the web was one of the biggest things that happened in the past few decades; it was certainly the biggest thing that happened to this journal," notes an accompanying editorial to mark the anniversary.
As part of this special anniversary package, there is also an infographic and podcast. These map key milestones in The BMJ's digital history.
The journal pioneered user-generated article responses in 1998, says the BMJ, and was the first general medical title to launch an iPad edition. In 2008 it launched a fully online first publishing model. In 2012 and 2013 geo-targeted digital editions launched for the US, UK, and India.
The BMJ's entire back archive dating back to 1840 is now available on the journal's website (more than 400,000 articles), along with more than 100,000 article comments, plus blogs, video and podcast platforms.
