This is an awesome blast from the past. CBC’s first report on this new thing called, INTERNET (I love that they didn’t call it THE internet back then). It’s just a good reminder of how we used to live before we were constantly wired.

The best part is that they claim INTERNET is mostly free from “cursing, swearing and scrutiny”. My how things change.

1995 was a tumultuous year. The DVD format was announced.  O.J. Simpson was acquitted. And a technology called the Internet was just starting to emerge. Clifford Stoll, the author of this 1995 Newsweek article, questions the potential of the web and ends up wrong on almost every account:

Then there’s cyberbusiness. We’re promised instant catalog shopping–just point and click for great deals. We’ll order airline tickets over the network, make restaurant reservations and negotiate sales contracts. Stores will become obsolete. So how come my local mall does more business in an afternoon than the entire Internet handles in a month? Even if there were a trustworthy way to send money over the Internet–which there isn’t–the network is missing a most essential ingredient of capitalism: salespeople.

Full Newsweek article (via allthingsmundane)

Photo via Jsmerkle

Is “nice” the next big thing online? There has recently been quite a bit of coverage given to the topic. Some are embracing this more positive internet, while others feel it will lead to a banal online experience or worse. It seems that the internet is always struggling to defend its reputation.

A few years ago it was common to hear how bad the internet was for us. We were supposed to become more antisocial, overweight and depressed as a result of our online habits. The digital world was supposed to be a hostile and addicting environment – which it sometimes was and still is. But as more people went online – approximately 66.2% of Americans and 70.9% of Canadians go online monthly – the doomsday predictions lessened, and luckily we haven’t all turned into melancholy hermits. (more…)

This is a little piece of the internet that I hold dear to my heart for various reasons. First off I’m a nerd, I’ve been watching G4tv since it was tech TV oh such a short time ago. Nightly I used to tune in to the Screen Savers, a nightly recap of the tech stories that happened during the day, I used to go to slashdot on the regular and I envied Kevin Rose for being that kid on my television with what I considered to be a sick job.

To say that I’ve lived these last five years as more of a digg reader than a contributor are true. While I find I’m not using digg and its robust community that much I do however digg stories I like and use it to get much of my day to day information, from RSS to my screensaver from the digg labs I’ve been hooked for a long time.

If your not familiar with digg.com then I would hope that you take the 5 minutes and see what its about. Then if your further interested then visit digg.com subscribe to their feed, watch the weekly podcast and maybe even become a user.

p.s. bucket list goal is to be friend with Kevin Rose. (yes I’m a nerd like that)