Do you remember what the Internet* was like, way back when? Well, there’s an informative infograhic been made by Bestedsites.com comparing the Internet now with a decade ago ie 2002.
I found the increase in time spent on the Internet interesting, and possibly related to increased take-up of broadband and monthly subscriptions rather than pay as you go dial-up. We still seem to be mainly searching for films, sports and music as the most popular searches. And the impact on specific film, book and music stores is very interesting.
This infographic also got me thinking as to what I was doing a decade ago.
Honno 2002
I was just finishing a Masters and starting my PhD in 2002, but was also coming to an end of working part-time for a publishing company (Honno), where I was responsible for maintaining their website, among other things. Using the excellent Internet Archive you can type in a url and it will show a snapshot of the website at different points in time (see images here – the improvement is clear!).
Honno 2012
So then I wondered, what was I doing in 1992, two decades ago? Well, the World Wide Web had only just been invented, and I was still doing my A levels at college. I do recall my very first use of the World Wide Web though, in September 1996, in my first full-time job as a library assistant. I asked a housemate what to do and she told me to use something called Yahoo and a browser called Netscape. Do you recall your first use of the World Wide Web?
*Yes, I still use a capital letter because there is only one Internet (thus it is a proper noun) and only one World Wide Web, although I’m prepared to agree that language changes and I may end up writing internet, one day. Maybe. See article here for the difference.
I can’t remember the first time I used the Internet, but I remember I was an undergraduate and spent a lot more time on Usenet and email than on the WWW, which seemed a bit pointless and slow to me back then. A few years later I was building my first websites on AOL dial up while living in a caravan.
Ah, dial-up!
I didn’t use email during my university degree. That seems so strange now. We were issued with email addresses but to be honest, I had nobody to email.
I mostly just emailed lecturers asking about the finer points of classical culture.
We used a paper based system of notes to communicate with tutors. Gosh I’m sounding old.