In 1989, a television show called Dugee Howser, M.D., aired on the American Broadcast Network (ABC). Dugee was written to be a genius, acquiring his medical degree at age 14. In the show, Dugee kept a digital diary, marking the conclusion of every episode. This journal was broadcast into the homes of millions of people, sharing his thoughts, ideas, his story.
In 1990, Tim Berners-Lee, an independent contractor at CERN - The European Organization for Nuclear Research - proposed a project he called hypertext. Today, we call them links, words with a visual cue to facilitate the sharing of information. Click it and they will come.
1991: America Online shifted its focus to Internet services for the Windows operating system. AOL would make communicating on the Internet easy to use, simple to understand, and affordable for most households. But the Internet demands change, a massive gravity that creates perpetual motion. Bloated, cumbersome corporations are rarely capable of such action. Now, AOL is a dinosaur in a world of mammals.
The MP3 format becomes available in 1994. MPEG Layer 3 allows music to be compressed into tiny file sizes. The recording industry, plump on a 100% profit margin from CD sales is concerned, but unwavering in its business model. Recording industry administrative executives cannot agree on a plan so a “stay the course” mentality is maintained.
1999: Napster is born to the Internet, allowing data sharing from one computer to another. Almost overnight, a dozen other entities offer similar services. The MP3 digital music format goes completely viral. Music is commoditized. The Internet devours a raw, bloody chunk of its first business model - physical distribution.
By 2003 a number of studies are conducted on the Internet’s effect on socializing. In this same year, Facebook and MySpace are launched, simplifying the creation of personal web space with an added social component. Mark Zuckerberg, the creator of Facebook, was trying to get a girl off his mind by blogging. People begin to reach out, connect, and re-connect on the Web in a way e-mail cannot allow. User-empowerment defines the Internet.
In 2004, Flickr, the online photo repository, is launched. The Internet now has a face, generally uncorrected in Photoshop, and it’s beautiful. Millions of smiles, tears, and fishing trips are shared online.
Democratization of video comes to the Web in 2005 with YouTube, in part due to affordable personal digital video equipment. Desktop video editing software is both affordable and powerful enough to create decent quality digital movies. It’s only a matter of time before someone creates a low-budget movie that gets the attention of Hollywood.
2006: Twitter is born, an entirely usable short message service (SMS) for the rest of the Internet. Brevity is the mother of invention and 140 character messages spawn the concept of micro-blogging.
This is our digital life…
