The Internet and I Fall in Love. (part 1)

An Article by Paul A. Iacono June 22nd, 2007.

When I was in university in 1993-4, it was as a mature student to retrain in Technology/IT as I could see this was the way to go. I remember buying my first ever modem, an external 9, 600bps dinosaur, that took me days to find the right settings for as the person who I'd bought it off had lost the driver floppy disk.

After days of messing around with modem baud rates, etc etc I got onto the internet and loaded my first ever page, it was My universities website. I was presented with a text only page black text on a white background, but my heart was beating fast and my palms were covered with the sweat of a young man beginning his initial journey into a new Love Affair.

It may sound ludicrous to you, but for me a self confessed bookworm from the age of 4-5 yrs old, this was heaven. No more would I have to go to the library looking through shelf after shelf, with my head tilted sideways reading the spines of musty old books, looking for one that caught my eye. This was an absolutely huge leap forward in the world of finding out specific, relevant, technical information necessary for a particular purpose.

The 9, 600bps modem I used was so slow, that when I encountered a page that had more than 2-3 photographs, or complicated graphics, it took an age to download. I'm not talking of 10 seconds here, I'm talking of up to 1-2 minutes for some pages it was excruciating. So I learned to turn off the photographs from downloading automatically, and only loaded them when it was something I valued.

Within a period of 2 years so many sites had sprung up, both in the commerce, and the hobbyist/interest type of sites. It was so cool, I spent so much time just surfing the net, as there was always something new to blow your mind. Including my first real look at pornographic materials, as we in the UK had always been very much behind the rest of Europe/The World. Then all of a sudden, there were sites depicting any and all types of XXX rated materials some erotic, and some just plain nasty to the point it turned me off. But they were promoting that as the virtue of the internet, it provided EVERYONE with Something they were interested in.

Then came the 2nd revolution of the Net, as far as I'm concerned. By 1998-1999 the largest companies decided it was time for them to really enter the internet in a big way, not just the Amazon Books, IT companies etc. Now it was time for every Tom, Dick and Harry to stand up and be counted. Everywhere you looked the advertisments on TV, Newspapers etc., now had www.XXX at the end of them, it made me smile. Only a few years before friends and family had told me they would NEVER use the Net, that it was something for Tech Heads only. Now they ALL wanted a piece.

After the Millennium Bug never happened, Bob the Builder, the shifty Real Estate Agents and little Johnny at home doing his homework ALL wanted to be on the internet to expand their horizons. I loved it, though my hands no longer sweated and the heart beat stayed the same, my enjoyment of the internet grew day by day. My business designing websites had 20 staff, huge offices in the city centre, and people looked upon me as a GURU. It was amazing.

Then the internet bubble burst as always happens when the stock markets get their grubby hands on these things. They had decided that every company that had the words internet or www in the title were valued vastly over the bricks and mortar values as No One had ever had to put a price on Virtual Worlds before, so how much does a ZERO and a number 1 cost these days then (Sorry for the JOKE).

All the fly by nights flew away and buried their heads in shame and bankruptcy, we were lucky to go on as we still had some substance in our company and enough of our clients had been advised correctly to not put all the eggs in one basket. So we stepped carefully through the mire, and over the next 2 years things started to gain momentum again, with every business/individual wanting the Net again.

I skip ahead to now, where the internet is a grown up marketing, e-commerce and communications tool of vast value. We were vindicated because we were right; the IT guys from the 1990s weren't dreaming "Pie in the Sky" fantasies. We were trying to revolutionise the way we all do business. So look back just 10 years No More, to where it began.

NOW Think ahead 10 or maybe 20 years where do we go from here, it's so exciting, as every day something new is invented or released to market. The world has not gone mad, its just changed for the better if you ask me.

AS Now we can speak to a guy in Africa, a girl from China without the barriers of cost etc. restricting us. Soon they will put instant translation into our messaging software and the globe will really be a smaller place then.

I'll finish up (for now) with nothing spiritual, except to say that the real reason the Internet has changed is because WE the USERS of the Net demanded it. Faster connections, simpler access and content that is both useful and entertaining. So PEOPLE please keep changing and asking, probing and communicating with each other.

This is the worlds Biggest change, we all talk with each other a lot more. My 65 year old Mum was quite lonely stuck in the house after retirement, now she is out and about travelling the globe seeing things and meeting friends she met on the Net. These are the real benefits; people who are disabled can have 100 friends in an online chat room party, before they wouldn't see/speak to 100 people in a year.

Keep it up Guys n Gals, because the INTERNET Belongs to US ALL.

Paul Iacono