internethistory

Take a trip with me back to social media in 2010, when the likes of Facebook, Twitter, Digg and StumbleUpon were SENDING TRAFFIC to websites (I know, hard to believe, right? People actually used to click on links!) Friends, it was a halcyon time for tech blogs and other indie publications. https://cybercultural.com/p/054-social-media-2010/ #InternetHistory #SocialMediaHistory

Remember those "best experienced with [browser name]" badges?

"MTV's revamped World Wide Web site for MTV contains a heavy amount of original music content and a unique Web browser design. [...] Some of the site's best content, including a grossly appealing game with Beavis & Butt-head, is designed exclusively for Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser."

https://cybercultural.com/p/browser-war-1990s/

#internet #TheWeb #InternetHistory #technology #cyberculture

David Bowie, Prince and Peter Gabriel all had interactive CD-ROMs out in 1994, and had plans for further multimedia projects. But by the end of the year, the CD-ROM format was effectively over. And let's not forget Cybermania '94, the Oscars of multimedia! https://cybercultural.com/p/cd-roms-1994/ #InternetHistory #Bowie #Prince

As we continue to grow ReadWriteWeb over the second half of 2010, I struggle with our inability to hire US writers full-time because it’s a non-US company. This creates unease amongst our bloggers. https://cybercultural.com/p/055-rww-expansion-2010/ (part 055 of my serialized Web 2.0 memoir) #InternetHistory #Serialization

On the first anniversary of launching my serialized book, I reflect on what I've learned — including the pros and cons of my pivot from Substack newsletter to indie website. https://cybercultural.com/p/online-serialization-thoughts/ #Serialization #InternetHistory #IndieWebsites

In the latest instalment of my Web 2.0 memoir, I reflect on the final quarter of 2010 — including another trip to Silicon Valley. 2010 was, in hindsight, peak ReadWriteWeb. As you'll read in following instalments, 2011 got... tumultuous. But you never quite know what will hit you next in the tech industry, so I was feeling cautiously optimistic at the time. As I note at the end of this post, in December RWW had its best-ever traffic month. https://cybercultural.com/p/056-parc-visit-2010/ #InternetHistory

"I want my MTV...as long as it's the Java version in IE4."

MTV's website in 1997 was a hodgepodge of technologies: Java, JavaScript, frames and more. The quality of your user experience depended on which browser you used: Netscape or IE. https://cybercultural.com/p/browser-war-1990s/ #InternetHistory #BrowserWar

One of my all-time favorite artists is Lana Del Rey, and in this week's Cybercultural I chronicle her breakthrough year of 2011 — and how YouTube and social media were pivotal to her rise. 2011 was when Lana achieved "internet fame", which eventually led to a far greater level of fame. https://cybercultural.com/p/lana-del-rey-youtube-2011/ #InternetHistory #LanaDelRey

"There were very few websites that went beyond text at the start of '94, so to begin with people didn't quite know what to make of [Internet Underground Music Archive]."

https://cybercultural.com/p/iuma-1994/

#music #history #MusicHistory #internet #TheWeb #InternetHistory #InternetUndergroundMusicArchive #IUMA

In the latest post in my history of blogging and RSS series, I look at the emergence of the blogosphere in 2002 — a thriving ecosystem of colourful personal sites that interconnected to each other via RSS, trackback and blogrolls. 2002 also saw the debut of RSS 2.0, Technorati and Google News. https://cybercultural.com/p/blogs-rss-2002/ #InternetHistory #Blogging

This week on Cybercultural I continue my look back at 1994 in #InternetHistory. I delve into how Netscape Navigator brought multimedia to the web, what it took to move the industry beyond the "internet in a box" paradigm, and why it was time for the ROMbloids to move aside and make way for the Webuloids! https://cybercultural.com/p/netscape-1994/

In 1997, the first browser war began amid new internet trends like 'push' and DHTML. Meanwhile, instant messaging apps like ICQ and AIM became popular and GeoCities achieved 1 million users. https://cybercultural.com/p/internet-1997/ #InternetHistory

This week's Cybercultural article looks back on 1998, the year of the portal: Excite, Netscape Netcenter, Yahoo, AOL, MSN and others all competing for eyeballs and trying to be sticky. But with so many portals, some inevitably failed. https://cybercultural.com/p/portals-1998/ #InternetHistory

"The key to [Beverly Hills Internet]'s initial growth over 1995 was helping people who had no technical knowledge of HTML to build a web page on the internet. It offered a “Personal GeoPage Generator” that enabled homesteaders to easily create a home page.

But more than that, and as the name for its users implied, Bohnett wanted to give people the sense that they had a home on the internet."

https://cybercultural.com/p/geocities-1995/

#internet #TheWeb #geocities #history #InternetHistory

It took me ages to find screenshots of BowieNet as it looked on launch in September 1998, but I finally found some beauties. Oh, and I explain how BowieNet not only became the default online community for David Bowie fans, it also anticipated the social networks that would emerge in the 2000s, like Facebook and Reddit. https://cybercultural.com/p/bowienet-launch-1998/ #InternetHistory #BowieForever

"Well, we don’t feel threatened." That's the Olim brothers — founders of dot-com online music retailer, CDnow — talking about Amazon. It's from a book they published in 1998 entitled "The CDnow Story: Rags to Riches on the Internet". At the start of '98, they were the leaders in online music retail. But in June 1998 [cue ominous music] Amazon branched out from books and added a Music tab to its fast growing e-commerce website... https://cybercultural.com/p/cdnow-amazon-1998/ #InternetHistory #CDnow #Amazon

I take a look at how Online Identity has evolved through the years, from the fluid identities of BowieWorld to the neutered identity culture that Facebook introduced in the 2000s. David Bowie himself played with virtual personas (how could he not?!) and I also look at a 1999 book by US sociologist Sherry Turkle. https://cybercultural.com/p/online-identity-bowieworld-1999/ #InternetHistory #OnlineIdentity

What was the internet like 30 years ago? I'm glad you asked. In 1995, Netscape went public and Microsoft noticed the internet — the browser wars began. Also that year, Amazon and eBay launched, JavaScript and PHP debuted, and the web went mainstream. https://cybercultural.com/p/internet-1995/ #InternetHistory #1995Nostalgia

As search engines in 2025 shift from providing links to (AI) answers — and all the angst that is causing web publishers — I thought I'd take a look at what search engines were like in 1998...one year before Google became popular. At that time search was seen as just one part of the portal experience. But little did AltaVista know, it wouldn't be the center of attention on @dannysullivan's Search Engine Watch for much longer. https://cybercultural.com/p/search-1998/ #InternetHistory #searchengines

When social networks went mainstream in 2003, they were initially positioned as dating apps — both Friendster and its copycat MySpace had online dating vibes (later that year, Mark Zuckerberg would use the "hot or not" format in Facemash...but that's another, creepier, story!). Here's a look back at MySpace vs. Friendster in 2003, and why the web's 'view source' philosophy was key to MySpace winning. https://cybercultural.com/p/myspace-2003/ #InternetHistory #SocialNetworks

New on Cybercultural: During the mid-1990s, David Bowie's website went from a storytelling structure for the Outside album, into a striking, grunge-inspired design for Earthling. At the same time, Bowie fan sites emerged. https://cybercultural.com/p/david-bowie-website-1995-1997/ #InternetHistory #WebDesign #BowieForever

It's 1998, the middle of the dot-com boom. Portals are advertising on TV, web developers are fighting browser companies (but despite this, web design has achieved a harmony of form and function), Microsoft and Amazon are gaining power, Google is born, and Netscape is going open source. https://cybercultural.com/p/internet-1998/ #InternetHistory

"It’s strange to think that streaming a song in stereo was so revolutionary back then, but that was the state of the art in online media circa 1996."

https://cybercultural.com/p/state-of-online-music-1996/

#music #internet #TheWeb #InternetHistory #OldWeb

Continuing my look back at the rise of Google, we're now in 1999. It's still a web world dominated by portals, but Google ("pure search" with "no portal litter," as one tech magazine put it) is starting to get noticed. https://cybercultural.com/p/google-1999/ #InternetHistory #Google1990s

In this week's internet history post, I look back at the peak of Flash web design in 2003. In particular, the launch of BowieNet version 3 — designed completely in Flash (which made it a huge challenge to get screenshots from the Wayback Machine!). Also featured: MTV2 and tokyoplastic v1. Hat-tip to @alienmelon, who I quote on Flash history. https://cybercultural.com/p/bowienet-v3-flash-2003/ #InternetHistory #Flash