Internet: The Second Decade

We are almost halfway into the second decade of the internet. Not a very long time at all, yet it’s pervaded our lives to an even greater extent than radio or television had before it.

I know from personal experience, because two weeks ago the power supply on my 5 year old Power Mac went poof, and I’ve been living on my laptop ever since until I buy a new Mac Pro. I’ve been bitching and moaning the whole time about what a pain in the *ahem* it is trying to get any serious work done on the laptop, and it also drove home the point that I do an awful lot of things that are internet dependent: web projects, email, web browsing, Netflix streaming, Xbox Live, Nintendo Store, Playstation Store….I’m on the damn computer pretty much anytime I’m not otherwise occupied with my family or my day job.

Last week we took a look at the Internet’s first decade. This time around we are just going to focus on 2004-2009. How has your internet usage changed, and what sites have become as important as the old standbys from the first decade?

• The Blog Read any blogs back in 1998? You did, only no one was calling them blogs. By the second decade, the blog had taken off. The presence of user-friendly content management systems made it possible for just about anyone to get online and express themselves. Are we already in the decline of the blog? No, but people have finally come to their senses and realized that blogging is a means for something other than being some kind of get rich quick scheme. End result: there is an awful lot of value being added to the internet by people who otherwise may have never had anything to do with a website. There are still splogs, and blogs designed for monetization with no other value added, but overall the internet is a better place for the proliferation of the blog, and I am someone who used to have a decidedly anti-blog attitude.
• The Web Forum The web forum started in the first decade as well, but has really come into it’s own in the second decade. Everything we used to do on BBS’s, mailing lists and usenet has found a home on web forums. Web forums also foster a greater sense of community, and while the problems that plagued usenet and mailing lists are still there, they are there to a lesser extent on web forums because of better moderation and community.
• RSS I remember when RSS support was first integrated in Mozilla and Safari. I had known of RSS, but I hadn’t used it previous to that. I initially wondered what the point was, and then I discovered the stand-alone RSS client. To me, RSS is great for sites that update a lot, sites that rarely update, or just keeping an eye on favorite sites.
• Bit Torrent Remember when file downloads were done by ftp, http, and irc? Wanna go back to that? The torrent and the torrent search engine make life so much easier.
• Wikipedia Need some information? Want to go to one place where they will have what you’re looking for instead of spending half your afternoon looking for it? Despite all the anti-Wikipedia types out there, I think it’s great. I am not doing research for my doctoral thesis, I’m just curious about something. Wikipedia fills that role perfectly.
• YouTube YouTube can be an insidious time killer. I use it to listen to music or watch music videos when I’m elsewhere. YouTube is an awesome nostalgia machine for an old fart like me.
• Woot! What a great idea, and what a gamble that anyone would have thought so. One item, one day. Really good buys, if it’s something you need, $5 shipping, and they’re quick. Confess, how many of you have sat in front of the computer hitting refresh during a Woot-off?
• Ebay It’s a sin of omission that I didn’t include Ebay in the first decade group, so I have to make up for it now. Back in ‘98 or ‘99 the deals were even better, because the herd got there shortly after, but Ebay is still a place you can find stuff you may not find otherwise. You may even get a really great deal. Great for collectors, like me. Great for people that need to make a buck, especially now that they have a partner network.
• Google A college project of two Stanford geeks in 1996, Google is now an empire that rivals Microsoft. I remember Google from a Slashdot post from ‘95 or ‘97, but I kept using other search engines until about 2002 or so. Remember when Hotbot was one of the top search engines? How many of you Hotbot and Yahoo users now rely on Google. All of you? ’nuff said.It isn’t just about the search engine anymore though. Adsense, Webmaster Tools, Google Earth, Google Maps, GMail, Groups, Picasa, Translate, Blogger….Google has continued to get into other aspects of internet use that add real value to the end user.

  I don’t see Google coming out with their own linux distro, but I do see some form of Google Desktop becoming an integral part of the Windows, Mac and *nix desktops in the future. This is a smart company that will have a bigger, longer-lived and healthier dynasty than Microsoft.

We’re only halfway through the second decade, and there are sites and technologies that will get added to this list. I’m sure I’ve missed things you find important, and I’m counting on you to add them in the comments section.

Regardless what you do on the internet, for most of us it’s become an integral part of our lives, and we were all here to watch it start and grow. As important as the steam engine, with much greater possibilities, both positive and negative.

On an unrelated note, this is my 100th article for Connected Internet. Hopefully I’ve added some value to both the site and the internet. I enjoy my participation in this site very much, and I hope that both Everton and all of you return the feeling. Perhaps the focus of my writing at times is merely a regurgitation of whatever is in my head that particular morning, and I am prone to sentimentality, but I never, ever sit down with the intention of just cranking out an article, any article, to fulfill my obligation to the site. Hopefully that has shown in the 1000 or so words a week I’ve contributed, and I look forward to the next 100 articles.

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