The most important invention in your lifetime is…
The internet, without doubt!
The internet goes public
I was lucky to see the internet become public. What was until then confined to the educational environment, in one moment was available to basically all households. You just needed a computer, a modem, and a landline. It was a cultural game changer. All of a sudden it was possible to communicate with anyone in the entire world. This obliterated the barriers between people in an instant. Overnight the world became a village.
The web browser
When I was in the university, at the beginning of the 90s, we used their computers to access the internet. There was not much to do besides visit a bunch of World Wide Web pages. Mostly, homepages of other universities around the globe made part of it. Its purpose was basically academic. Little by little other pages were added. The web browser I used to navigate was the NCSA Mosaic. I feel nostalgic seeing screenshots of that bygone era.
HoTMaiL
My first personal e-mail was from HoTMaiL. It was stylized that way to show that it was web-based (HTML when you take out the vowels). And that was why it was revolutionary. You accessed it anywhere, from any computer. You just needed your e-mail address and password to get it. This is taken for granted now. Before that, you only accessed e-mails from the network where your mail server was located. It was like a landline, you needed to be in the house to speak at the phone. Now, Hotmail was like the cell phone, you could use it anywhere.
ICQ, “I seek you”
One thing we need to admit, people were really clever with app names back then. The Instant Messaging platform ICQ was my choice to communicate with my friends. When you received a message there was the unforgettable sound “Uh-oh”. That meant someone was seeking for you and wanted to chat. I loved it, it was so exciting to message someone that was miles away from the comfort of your desktop. It was so easy, so convenient, you didn’t need to go to each other’s home. Again, with cell phones at our hands we can take that for granted, but it was a revolution!
Have you lived in that era? What was it like for you? What do you think of it now? Leave that in the comments!