I remember hearing about Mosaic for the first time, from Steve. My response was something akin to “Ah. Uh, what’s that for? Oh? Well I guess that’s cool. oO, check out that animated icon!” I had been on online systems throughout the 80’s and it didn’t seem like anything earth shattering. Eventually I heard Steve explain to our bosses [at the time] about how big this was going to be, and how we need to jump on it. Less than two years later, Steve realizes that something as mundane as aluminum foil had a URL for the parent company on it’s label, thus beginning what has become The Internet today with it’s shopping, ads, porn, home pages, open diaries, blogs, twitting, and the like…
Overall, I’ve been OK with it. I’ve sold software online. I’ve had a home page of sorts for ages. I’ve had a blog for many years. Even finally signed up for a twitter account that I never use – I don’t think I’m interesting enough for people to follow and following people… well, if I care, I expect it to hit the mainstream news.
Yet, today… today I’m slackjawed. Never in my wildest dreams did I ever expect to see home movies from my parent’s wedding streaming online.
“Exceeds expectations” is something I’ve said often enough but this… this somehow tops even that.
The best part: remember those executives who said “who would ever use the internet for business”..?
I do. I do indeed. It was only four years later that a certain CEO called the Internet “such a disaster that no one would ever use it for data transmitions […] things like stock and farming data couldn’t work on it.”
Shoulda kept a copy of the annual report as proof!
It’s amazing how things change and how fast. Quite a few executives in the 80s were skeptical about internet in general. Who would have thought back then that Internet would be used for business.