Leona "Flackadelic" Hobbs posted this must see CBC news segment about "Internet (no "the" in sight) from way back in October 1993:
Now that you’ve had a good laugh at what we thought about the Net 13 years ago, watch this must see video from 2007:
Can you imagine how laughable our view of the Net in 2007 will look in 2020? My guess is it will look even sillier than that CBC piece!
I assume you’re being ironic – nothing all that silly or laughable about that CBC report! Just a great reminder of what has and hasn’t changed in all these years. Interesting that it’s still a good summary of the essential appeal of the Net – even in our Web 2.0 blogosphere. It’s about people connecting with each other, based on common interests. The media is just richer now.
They ignored email and portrayed Newsgroups as the extent of “internet”, and their take on emoticons was a tad simplistic… but overall it reminded me of just how the buzz felt at the time and the excitement those of us who were there felt.
Sad that the civility which was indeed more the norm back then kind of got blown away as the sense of exclusivity and the “wow factor” subsided. Still, I remember “flaming” as a pretty common issue even in the mid 90’s…
And hey, he even said “THE internet” at the end!
Adam said:
“I assume you’re being ironic – nothing all that silly or laughable about that CBC report!”
I wasn’t being ironic, but it agree that “silly” wasn’t the word I wanted. Doing a rewrite now I’d probably say “quaint” or something like that.