To date, I don't think we've ever seen something on the internet as destructive to the cultural industries as Napster was in 1999 (although AI is threatening that now!). By coincidence, 1999 was when David Bowie became the first major artist to sell an album online as a digital download. The two storylines — Napster and Bowie's Hours — became entwined in intriguing ways. https://cybercultural.com/p/napster-1999/ #InternetHistory #Napster #Bowie

AOL Retires Dial-Up After 34 Years

Nach 34 Jahren sagt AOL Bye zum legendären Modem- & ISDN-Einwahl-Internet! Das Ende einer Retro-Ära mit dem berühmten „Running Man“ und den typischen Einwahl-Geräuschen steht am 30.09.2025 bevor. #AOL #InternetHistory #Modem Mehr: https://www.n-tv.de/technik/AOL-beendet-Internet-Einwahl-ueber-Modem-und-ISDN-article25957956.html

After seeing the movie 'The Matrix', Philip Rosedale started a dot-com company in 1999 and attempted to build a full-body virtual reality rig. He soon pivoted to creating a virtual world on the Web. To this day, he's still come closer to creating the metaverse than Mark Zuckerberg ever will... https://cybercultural.com/p/second-life-metaverse-1999/ #InternetHistory #Metaverse #TheMatrix

AOL announces September shutdown for dial-up Internet after 34 years https://arstechni.ca/sJL8 #Internetserviceproviders #internetinfrastructure #telecommunications #satelliteInternet #dial-upinternet #internethistory #Internetaccess #digitaldivide #ruralinternet #aoldialup #broadband #retrotech #dial-up #modems #BBSes #modem #yahoo #Tech #AOL #DSL

https://www.europesays.com/us/135766/ AOL’s dial-up internet still exists, but not for much longer #AOL #AOLInstantMessenger #DialUpInternet #DialUpService #Internet #InternetHistory #InternetService #Technology #UnitedStates #UnitedStates #US

"No Web phenomenon is more confounding than blogging. Everything media experts knew about audiences – and they knew a lot – confirmed the focus group belief that audiences would never get off their butts and start making their own entertainment.

What a shock, then, to witness the near-instantaneous rise of 50 million blogs, with a new one appearing every two seconds."

Great piece by @Jayhoffmann, 'We Are Still the Web': https://thehistoryoftheweb.com/we-are-still-the-web

Fin de una era: AOL apagará su servicio de Internet por dial-up el 30 de septiembre de 2025. Más de 40 años después, se despide el sonido del módem que marcó la entrada a la red para millones #AOL #InternetHistory

Webrings are still around, and @sarajw tipped me off to this large, essentially comprehensive list of them, here: https://brisray.com/web/webring-list.htm. This site lists over 400 webrings that are linked to over 16,000 websites total. Any kind of interest you may have, you'll probably be able to find a webring for it here.

The same site also has a great history of webrings, what they are, and how they started, here: https://brisray.com/web/webring-history.htm

In 1999, David Bowie starred in a 3D game about a hacker attacked by a demon in meatspace, who then escapes into the Omikron network. “An old legend recounts that only a nomad soul can hunt the demons out of Omikron,” he says in the introduction.

The music became his album 'hours...', but in retrospect the video game didn't quite match the likes of Everquest and Ultima Online for "human presence." https://cybercultural.com/p/bowie-1999-omikron/ #InternetHistory #BowieForever

Rediscover the 2000s internet: 57,423 Buddy Icons and 3,660 Away Messages from AIM era now available. A nostalgic journey through early social media memories. #Nostalgia #InternetHistory

ⓘ This Mastodon instance was promised to me 3,000 years ago.

I take a look at how Online Identity has evolved through the years, from the fluid identities of BowieWorld to the neutered identity culture that Facebook introduced in the 2000s. David Bowie himself played with virtual personas (how could he not?!) and I also look at a 1999 book by US sociologist Sherry Turkle. https://cybercultural.com/p/online-identity-bowieworld-1999/ #InternetHistory #OnlineIdentity

From accidental spam pioneer to digital innovator: How one programmer's side hustle in 1995 unintentionally shaped internet marketing and communication. A journey of creativity, technology, and unexpected impact. #InternetHistory #Innovation

El 26 de julio de 1996, 𝘼𝑻&𝑻 𝒚 𝑴𝙞𝒄𝙧𝒐𝙨𝒐𝙛𝒕 𝒆𝙨𝒕𝙖𝒃𝙡𝒆𝙘𝒊𝙚𝒓𝙤𝒏 𝒖𝙣𝒂 𝒂𝙡𝒊𝙖𝒏𝙯𝒂 para promover el navegador 𝐈𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐧𝐞𝐭 𝐄𝐱𝐩𝐥𝐨𝐫𝐞𝐫. Tenía como objetivo impulsar el uso de este navegador, permitiendo a ambos expandirse en el mercado de Internet.

AT&T integró Internet Explorer en su software, mientras que Microsoft facilitó el acceso a los servicios de AT&T a través de Windows 95 y compitiendo con Netscape, el líder del mercado en ese momento.

Continuing my look back at the rise of Google, we're now in 1999. It's still a web world dominated by portals, but Google ("pure search" with "no portal litter," as one tech magazine put it) is starting to get noticed. https://cybercultural.com/p/google-1999/ #InternetHistory #Google1990s

It's 1998, the middle of the dot-com boom. Portals are advertising on TV, web developers are fighting browser companies (but despite this, web design has achieved a harmony of form and function), Microsoft and Amazon are gaining power, Google is born, and Netscape is going open source. https://cybercultural.com/p/internet-1998/ #InternetHistory

November 2007— Mark Cuban pitches to #Facebook an API that extends past the Facebook domain. He describes what would eventually become Facebook's Open Graph and Graph API, the catalysts to the #CambridgeAnalytica scandal that would occur six years later.