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Are You Ready for the Internet? (1994) [video]

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Re: Are You Ready for the Internet? (1994) [video]

#171

Post by leto_ii »

I realize I'm going way against the grain of other commenters, but this video has made me aware of how little progress has actually been made since then. I mean, the core ideas of the modern internet services we're relying on were already there back in 1994.

Aside from much slicker devices, much higher bandwidth, much broader reach and a few new things around the edges, how much change have we actually seen? I'm of course being a bit facetious - speed, convenience, reach are all very important. But when it comes right down to core "mind blowing" new tech, how much have we actually improved on 1994?

Re: Are You Ready for the Internet? (1994) [video]

#172

Post by pjlegato »

unity1001 wrote: post #142
enos_feedler wrote: post #109

It's amazing just how quickly you can catch the under estimation of the internet's potential. Within the first sentence, starting with the word "imagine", the largest image that could be conjured is related to viewing content created offline, rather than creating and sharing it within the internet itself. In the furthest stretches of the imagination, the prediction still falls very short. No criticism to anyone in 19…

> the largest image that could be conjured is related to viewing content created offline Its because 1990s world was still the feudal, one-way world in which large corporations dominated everything and the users 'knew their place' and consumed content and products. Occasionally, a corporation would stoop low as to ask users' feedback to improve their product. And people would praise and elevate that corporation as be…

Exactly the opposite of this happened. Almost all content on the early-mid 90s web was user-generated. The bulk of it was personal "homepages" with low production values describing hobbies or technical interests.

Very few large corporations had even heard of this crazy new "Internet" thing in the 90s, and even fewer cared. Almost none had a corporate webpage even listing their address and phone number, much less produced any content at all.

Many had the .com domain name corresponding to their corporate brand registered by domain squatters they later had to buy it from. Some didn't even notice for years.

Re: Are You Ready for the Internet? (1994) [video]

#174

Post by drexlspivey »

willhinsa wrote: post #125
enos_feedler wrote: post #109

It's amazing just how quickly you can catch the under estimation of the internet's potential. Within the first sentence, starting with the word "imagine", the largest image that could be conjured is related to viewing content created offline, rather than creating and sharing it within the internet itself. In the furthest stretches of the imagination, the prediction still falls very short. No criticism to anyone in 19…

I think Bowie's prediction for the impact of the internet was not too far off the mark. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LaHcOs7mhfU

Also check out Arthur C Clarke (author of the 2001 Space Odyssey) predicting internet connected personal computers and remote work in 1974

https://youtu.be/OIRZebE8O84

Re: Are You Ready for the Internet? (1994) [video]

#175

Post by mmh0000 »

jbb_hn wrote: post #92
joegahona wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For a while, I remember "The Net" being used. It sounds very wrong now.

Probably due to that provocative movie on cable TV by the same name. It had that girl from the bus.

I love the Seinfeld joke!

Re: Are You Ready for the Internet? (1994) [video]

#176

Post by prng2021 »

leto_ii wrote: post #171

I realize I'm going way against the grain of other commenters, but this video has made me aware of how little progress has actually been made since then. I mean, the core ideas of the modern internet services we're relying on were already there back in 1994. Aside from much slicker devices, much higher bandwidth, much broader reach and a few new things around the edges, how much change have we actually seen? I'm of c…

Dynamic websites is a core idea of the modern internet and that concept did not exist in 1994 internet. JavaScript did not exist.

Modern internet is also real-time and largely community driven. Even the notion of these did not exist in 1994 internet. Websockets did not exist. Social networks did not exist. Video conferencing did not exist. Collaborative document editing did not exist.

The ideas of wearables and always connected devices (smart watches, speakers, thermostats, lights, etc) did not exist in 1994.

The idea that you could create virtual worlds, ie a metaverse, where anyone and everyone could interact by talking and even manipulating objects in the virtual world did not exist in 1994.

The idea of aggregating user behavior across every connected device they use, site they visit, physical location they visit, and generating a prediction of their likes/dislikes and future behavior in order to tailor the actual user experience to each individual (targeted advertising, your personal google search results, etc) is a mind blowing core idea of the modern internet which did not exist in 1994.

Re: Are You Ready for the Internet? (1994) [video]

#180

Post by ctoth »

prng2021 wrote: post #176
leto_ii wrote: post #171

I realize I'm going way against the grain of other commenters, but this video has made me aware of how little progress has actually been made since then. I mean, the core ideas of the modern internet services we're relying on were already there back in 1994. Aside from much slicker devices, much higher bandwidth, much broader reach and a few new things around the edges, how much change have we actually seen? I'm of c…

Dynamic websites is a core idea of the modern internet and that concept did not exist in 1994 internet. JavaScript did not exist. Modern internet is also real-time and largely community driven. Even the notion of these did not exist in 1994 internet. Websockets did not exist. Social networks did not exist. Video conferencing did not exist. Collaborative document editing did not exist. The ideas of wearables and alway…

> Dynamic websites is a core idea of the modern internet and that concept did not exist in 1994 internet.

CGI and other forms of dynamicity absolutely existed in 1994[0].

> JavaScript did not exist.

IT just needed 1 more year!

> Modern internet is also real-time and largely community driven. Even the notion of these did not exist in 1994 internet.

Check out MUDs and MOOs. Lambda was 3 years old in 1994. Wired called online virtual worlds "the addiction of the '90s[1]."

> Websockets did not exist.

But Berkeley sockets did (although you might have had to do some tinkering with Winsock on Windows!) , and I'm curious what you can do over a web socket that you can't do over a traditional socket.

> Social networks did not exist.

MUDs and mOOs again.

> Video conferencing did not exist.

Intel actually released a "kit" to enable this on regular Windows PCs in 1994. Cost a pretty penny though[2]!

>Collaborative document editing did not exist.

The first instance of a collaborative real-time editor was demonstrated by Douglas Engelbart in 1968, in The Mother of All Demos. Widely available implementations of the concept took decades to appear. A piece of software called Instant Update was released for the classic Mac OS in 1991 from ON Technology[3].

> The ideas of wearables and always connected devices (smart watches, speakers, thermostats, lights, etc) did not exist in 1994.

Proto wearables absolutely existed in 1994[4].

X10 was developed in 1975 by Pico Electronics of Glenrothes, Scotland, in order to allow remote control of home devices and appliances. It was pretty cool, too, the modules had big honkin relays in them and would go 'clonk' when you switched them!

> The idea that you could create virtual worlds, ie a metaverse, where anyone and everyone could interact by talking and even manipulating objects in the virtual world did not exist in 1994.

Seriously though, check out what LambdaMOO and similar things were[5][6].

> The idea of aggregating user behavior across every connected device they use, site they visit, physical location they visit, and generating a prediction of their likes/dislikes and future behavior in order to tailor the actual user experience to each individual (targeted advertising, your personal google search results, etc) is a mind blowing core idea of the modern internet which did not exist in 1994.

Now this, you're right about. Personally I could 1000% do without.

[0]: 1993: CGI Scripts and Early Server-Side Web Programming. https://webdevelopmenthistory.com/1993-cgi-scripts-and-early...

[1]: Johnny Manhattan Meets the Furry Muckers. https://www.wired.com/1994/03/muds-3/

[2]: Intel to Unveil Kit for Video Conferencing. https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/business/1994/01/25/i...

[3]: Collaborative real-time editor. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collaborative_real-time_editor

[4]: The 1994 Smartwatch That Syncs with a CRT. https://blog.adafruit.com/2022/03/16/the-1994-smartwatch-tha...

[5]: Virtual(ly) Law: The Emergence of Law in LambdaMOO. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/j.1083-6101...

[6]: Fly Me To the MOO: Adventures in Textual Reality. http://linguafranca.mirror.theinfo.org/9405/moo.html

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