July 15, 2025 • 33 mins
Turn on your dial-up modem & get ready to send this email to ten friends before a limewire virus crashes the family desktop because today, we're getting a broader understanding of how the internet became an ad.
In this episode we travel through the ghost town of the old internet through chain emails, geocities fan sites, LiveJournal confessions, MySpace betrayals, before making are way to the Facebook takeover & the rise of tiktokshop, all while asking:
When did our online diaries turn into shopping malls?
When did our friendships turn into feed suggestions?
And what do we do now, on an internet (and in a world) where everything feels more algorithm than human?
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/broads-next-door--5803223/support.
In this episode we travel through the ghost town of the old internet through chain emails, geocities fan sites, LiveJournal confessions, MySpace betrayals, before making are way to the Facebook takeover & the rise of tiktokshop, all while asking:
When did our online diaries turn into shopping malls?
When did our friendships turn into feed suggestions?
And what do we do now, on an internet (and in a world) where everything feels more algorithm than human?
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/broads-next-door--5803223/support.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
No matter how large, no matter how small, we'll be
on the Internet in the year two thousand is.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
The primary way that people will look up information. It
will replace the Yellow Pages as we know it. Today
are a lot of.
Speaker 1 (00:11):
People just getting on to the Internet because they feel
that they have.
Speaker 3 (00:14):
To get onto the plane field, so to speak.
Speaker 4 (00:16):
But it's very shufful to be on the internet right now.
Speaker 1 (00:19):
There is violence at nbcge comm.
Speaker 5 (00:22):
I mean that's.
Speaker 6 (00:23):
Going to come out.
Speaker 7 (00:23):
Well, what Allison should know?
Speaker 8 (00:25):
When do you say that out?
Speaker 9 (00:26):
Anyway?
Speaker 5 (00:27):
Internet is that massive computer.
Speaker 10 (00:30):
Network, the one that's becoming really big.
Speaker 1 (00:33):
Now, what do you mean that's how does what?
Speaker 11 (00:36):
Do you write to it?
Speaker 5 (00:37):
Like mail? No, a lot of people use it and communicate.
I guess they can communicate with NBC writers and producers. Allison,
can you explain what Internet is?
Speaker 12 (00:44):
No, she can't say anything in ten seconds or less.
Speaker 5 (00:48):
I'm afraid that if I subscribe to something like Internet.
Speaker 6 (00:51):
You would really be hooked.
Speaker 5 (00:52):
I would get hooked and I would never, you know,
spend time with my family.
Speaker 3 (00:57):
Does it bother at all that these people that you
don't really know. I mean, everybody's signing on and having
these conversations and whining together or graping together or whatever
too with the people that I mean, I don't know,
I use a group therapy.
Speaker 13 (01:10):
The of the nineties.
Speaker 5 (01:11):
Well, I just as I mentioned, I have no desire
to be a part of the Internet, because I feel
like I'm so inundated with information all the time that
I don't really I don't want more. Don't you never
feel like it's just constant fumbardments.
Speaker 1 (01:25):
I guess the thing I'd resent most is I would
resent that you know, at least when you're home, if
the phone rings, you have the option of not answering it.
On the Internet, people can send you messages all time.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
You don't even write your phone.
Speaker 6 (01:34):
Hello, neighbors, lovers, friends, and lost websites. I'm Danielle Scrima
and this is Broad's next door. Turn up your dial
up modem and get ready to send this email to
ten friends before a LimeWire virus crashes the family desktop.
Because today we're getting a broader understanding of how the
(01:54):
Internet became an ad as we travel through the ghost
town of the old Internet through chain emails, live journal confessions,
MySpace portrayal, all while asking when did our online diaries
turn into shopping malls. When did our friendships turn into
feed suggestions? And what do we do now in a
world that feels more algorithm than human.
Speaker 1 (02:18):
What do President Clinton, conservative radio personality Rush Limbaugh, and
rock star Billy Idle have in common. They've all got
electronic mail addresses on computer systems linked to the Internet,
a global hookup that ferments computers to exchange information. In
nineteen eighty one, only two hundred and thirteen computers were
hooked to the Internet. As the new year begins, and
estimated two and a half million computers will be on
(02:40):
the net serving as money is twenty million people almost
two thousand and one. And the technologies that bring us telephones,
TV and computers are merging.
Speaker 14 (02:48):
Five years from now, We're not going to have distinct
to cable and telephone industries.
Speaker 10 (02:53):
It's going to be one industry.
Speaker 4 (02:55):
And there'll be companies carrying fits little pieces of information
from point A to point B.
Speaker 1 (03:00):
The University Research Network. A promotional video put out five
years ago by Apple Computer envisioned people talking to computer
terminals and to one another through video phone links. By
the year twenty ten, I Mike, what's up? It's already
coming true. In Soritos, California. Video phone services partament experiment
started by General Telephone and the local cable company. There
(03:21):
are also interactive TV channels where people order movies on
demand instead of driving to the local video store. It
spans the globe like a super highway. It is called
Internet the net to longtime users. Internet is a whole
group of networks. The net is made up of some
twelve thousand individual computer networks. Internet began back in nineteen
(03:44):
sixty nine.
Speaker 2 (03:45):
It was a tool of the Pentagon.
Speaker 1 (03:46):
Nowadays, just about anyone when the computer and a modem
can join in, usually for a nominal fee.
Speaker 14 (03:52):
When Carol Thorpes wants to know what's going on in
her community, she takes a walk to the computer in
her family room. Critics say, one day or is this
could turn out to be at a lead a system
one available only to people with a computer and a motive.
Phillips connects to Kupertino, California's city run network city net
and effort to harness the information explosion to allow the
(04:13):
high tech facts and figures between government, business schools, and citizens.
Speaker 1 (04:18):
Computers, databases, and consumer electronics designed to put vast amounts
of information users.
Speaker 6 (04:24):
Fingertips, Hi, Hello, how is everyone? I hope you're doing well.
I hope you enjoyed your weekend. I hope you're not
trapped in an endless doom scroll so deep that you
forget who you are. Not that that's ever happened to me.
I know a lot of people who are taking social
media breaks right now, and I really get it. I
(04:47):
feel like it's really easy to get lost these days.
And it made me start thinking a lot about the
Internet that I fell in love with, the messy, human, embarrassing,
beautiful inner. I kind of think it's been dead for
a long time. Not exactly in a dead Internet theory way,
but maybe. And the dead Internet theory is the idea
(05:11):
of what most of what we see online is automated
bought farms and clickbait algorithms regurgitating the same things manipulating
us into buying It kind of makes sense. When you
have to go through twenty ads to see one person
you actually follow, it doesn't feel human anymore. So I
(05:33):
get why people believe that, because I remember the Internet
when it was still live. I got my first computer
in August of nineteen ninety nine, the month I started
high school. Fourteen years old, fifty six K dial up
shrieking through the house. My first email was baby Doll
K eighty five DS, the K for Kirk Cobain, obviously
(05:54):
because I was and remained dramatic. But back then, the
Internet wasn't a brand, it wasn't an economy. It was
an invitation. I remember asking everyone at school do you
have email? Because I was so excited and I was
looking for people who could see me, and I found them.
I made lifelong friends. I moved across the country with
(06:17):
people I met in comment sections. The Internet did build
my real life, and then it started building something else,
something colder, something darker, something that I now barely recognize
and is definitely worse than anything I could have imagined
on my first GeoCities website. Can you imagine a world
(06:38):
where your existence online wasn't curated, bought, sold and fed
back to you, Because there was a time like that,
and then slowly, quietly, heartbreakingly, for profit, it became something else.
Speaker 10 (06:52):
I digress.
Speaker 6 (06:53):
I'm skipping ahead because before the Internet was this neighborhood
I'm telling you about, it was just a rumor. On
The Today Show in nineteen ninety four, Brant Gumbele stares
into the camera and asks, what is the Internet anyway?
Katie Kuric says, it's that massive computer network, the one
that's becoming really big now. No one really understood what
(07:15):
was happening. This is a clip from Dark Side of
the Nineties about the early nineties' website bust, bubble boom,
all that went down.
Speaker 8 (07:25):
Can you explain what internet is for?
Speaker 9 (07:27):
How it worked? That all mark with the A and
then the ring around it.
Speaker 15 (07:30):
At see, that's what I said, Casey, she thought.
Speaker 1 (07:33):
It was a buck.
Speaker 15 (07:33):
Yeah, the information is super Highway can be a confusing
mix of on rams and off ramps.
Speaker 9 (07:38):
The Internet starts as a military communication network in the
sixties and spends the next twenty years being further developed
in university computer science labs. But it was the creation
of the Worldwide Web in nineteen ninety, a series of
web pages connected by hyperlinks, that made the Internet become
something that the average person can use.
Speaker 16 (07:57):
Your link to literature, they are the world, your fingertips, the.
Speaker 10 (08:01):
Pre transfer of information in as accessible way as possible.
You know, we're going to make it so that anybody
can access anything from anywhere. I was like, well, that's
kind of a cool idea, and who better.
Speaker 9 (08:11):
To latch onto a cool new idea than baby boomers
Bill Clinton and Al Gore, and they get elected in
nineteen ninety three. The Worldwide Web is at the center
of the proposed tech based economy.
Speaker 17 (08:22):
Eisenhower had built the interstate highway system.
Speaker 10 (08:24):
Well, Clinton and Gore were going to bring in the
age of the information super Highway.
Speaker 9 (08:29):
Clinton makes good on his promise, but it gets some
much needed help from a company that builds an on
ramp to this new digital future.
Speaker 7 (08:36):
I'm Rosiencino, and I was a vice president of corporate
Communications at Netscape. I was the nineteenth employee, and I
believe this second female.
Speaker 9 (08:45):
There was me and a lot of established Silicon Valley
entrepreneur Jim.
Speaker 7 (08:50):
Clark became convinced in talking to Mark that the Internet
space was wide open for the taking. Yeah, this thing
that was right now being used for scientific purposes would
potentially be.
Speaker 10 (09:01):
Used for commercial purposes.
Speaker 7 (09:02):
He could envision that we might want to sell where
it all go, the vision that it could be usedful
you know, widespread communication in.
Speaker 9 (09:09):
The early nineties. The Web is slow and hard to navigate.
It's the domain of academics. And computer geeks, but Clark
and Andreessen have a vision to make the Web accessible
to everyone.
Speaker 2 (09:19):
We ended up sort of in the middle of the
night starting this project.
Speaker 11 (09:21):
What we were trying to do was put sort of
a human.
Speaker 4 (09:23):
Face on the Internet.
Speaker 9 (09:24):
True to its namesake, the browser is a navigator to
the web, making surfing as easy as point and click.
Speaker 10 (09:31):
Landscape Navigator was the first commercial version of a web browser.
Speaker 18 (09:36):
That spawned Apple Safari, it spawned Google Chrome. All of
a sudden, the power of the Internet that had been
there for years was available to everybody in an easy way,
point and click, the universal language.
Speaker 10 (09:49):
I'm Tia Hernandez and back in the nineties, I helped
launch the world Wide Web.
Speaker 7 (09:53):
That's a little money, let me let me let me
do that again.
Speaker 10 (09:56):
I was able to witness the birth of the world
Wide Web.
Speaker 9 (09:58):
I like that better.
Speaker 13 (10:00):
I don't want to take.
Speaker 15 (10:01):
Credit for any of that.
Speaker 17 (10:02):
It was foundational. This wasn't just a nice to have
having the browser was absolutely essential to internet commerce, for entertainment,
for communication, all these things.
Speaker 10 (10:15):
I'm Margaret O'Mara.
Speaker 17 (10:16):
I'm professor of history at the University of Washington and Seattle.
The very first email I sent outside of my building
was in late nineteen ninety three.
Speaker 10 (10:24):
I thought it was amazing if.
Speaker 14 (10:25):
Everybody listening to begin, let us introduce you to our.
Speaker 15 (10:30):
First college recruit demofact, first college recruit with.
Speaker 9 (10:34):
Netscape recruiting employees fresh out of college, traditional workplace culture
of tech giants like IBM is getting replaced. Geeks run
this startup and they write the rules as they go.
Speaker 7 (10:45):
Imagine going into a frat house and has an adult
living there, and that adult is Jim Clark, and Jim
Clark is trying to help a bunch of young college
boys figure out that they are now doing something that
has to be ready for business.
Speaker 10 (11:01):
Netscape people got into work and maybe didn't go home
that night, maybe worked all the way through the night.
Speaker 7 (11:06):
I have a nice.
Speaker 19 (11:07):
Couch, all matresson under there, I can sleep.
Speaker 10 (11:10):
Work became the life, and that was sort of the
only life you had that tied into that concept of
sort of manic innovation.
Speaker 19 (11:20):
That I worked too.
Speaker 10 (11:22):
Much long, pans.
Speaker 1 (11:27):
I have threatened.
Speaker 11 (11:28):
I don't know how many times.
Speaker 7 (11:29):
Mark represented sort of the this is what's coming, you know,
it's not this polished, you know, suit and tie kind
of thing, and.
Speaker 9 (11:36):
Reason's rise from geeky undergraduate to tech rock star is
whispered about in Silicon Valley, but a story goes mainstream
when he lands the cover of Time magazine a year.
Speaker 7 (11:47):
Into Netscape, Time Magazine saw how exciting all of this
was and how perfect Mark Andresen was, young and nerdy,
perfect for the moment. So they came up with this
idea of putting him on its role, kind of looking
like a guy who.
Speaker 4 (12:03):
Just came out of college.
Speaker 10 (12:06):
And he had no shoes on, and everybody gets focused
on his toenails.
Speaker 15 (12:10):
Find them this kid clipping his tone.
Speaker 9 (12:12):
Old at the time, twenty year old Microsoft rules the
personal computer market, but its founder Bill Gates is slow
to see the potential of the Internet, even dismissing it
as a fad to Tom Brocott in nineteen ninety four,
a lot.
Speaker 13 (12:25):
Of people just getting on to the Internet because they
feel that they have to get out on the playing field,
so to speak.
Speaker 11 (12:30):
Well, it's very ship to be on the Internet right now.
Speaker 9 (12:33):
But just a year later Gates realizes the net is
no fad. Microsoft begins developing Internet Explorer, a browser to
compete with Navigator. Netscape sees a war coming, one that
will require more money to wage.
Speaker 7 (12:45):
We were a young company.
Speaker 1 (12:46):
We needed going.
Speaker 9 (12:48):
To backs company to raise capital quickly, and that's just
what Netscape needs to compete with Microsoft. In the summer
of ninety five, this young company launches an IPO, an
initial public offering to sell shares to investors.
Speaker 7 (13:01):
We decided it really was to the advantage of to
seize the moment. Just seize the moment and go public,
even though we'd only been in business not even a
year and a half.
Speaker 1 (13:10):
At eleven am this morning, Netscape stock went public and
Wall Street went blonkers.
Speaker 10 (13:14):
Netscape when IPO August ninth, nineteen ninety five, also known
as the day Jerry Garcia died. Whether or not he
died in discuss is a discussion for the philosopher's.
Speaker 1 (13:23):
Socially offered at a price of twenty eight dollars a share,
Netscape shot up to seventy two.
Speaker 9 (13:27):
Within minutes, Netscape stock price explodes. Investers are anxious to
own a piece of the company that is bringing the
Internet to the world. Everyone was stocked in the company,
especially its founders and employees, is poised to get rich.
Speaker 10 (13:41):
In a room that was fully formed.
Speaker 9 (13:42):
Digital companies go public and celebrate as their stock price
is sore. Netscape, that company that got already started minds
itself being targeted by the most powerful corporation in tech, Microsoft,
Like every other dot com at the time, almost didn't
matter if it was going to succeed.
Speaker 15 (13:58):
There was still a future bet that made it a
successful opening, and so you couldn't really tell up from down.
Speaker 9 (14:05):
I think, but dot com frenzies on the decline. The
stock market has woken up to the reality that many
of these companies are losing much more money than they're making.
Speaker 17 (14:13):
The Internet may produce something else, the next big wave bankruptcies.
Speaker 1 (14:17):
The downslide has wiped sixteen billion dollars, and a lot
of ones promising companies are coming to the end of
the line.
Speaker 17 (14:24):
In March two thousands, the NASDAC hits its high geek
and starts going down and investors start getting cold feet,
and of course people get really excited as a group,
and then they're like, wait a minute, someone's starting to
sell Amazon.
Speaker 10 (14:36):
How I should sell it to?
Speaker 9 (14:37):
And dot COM's total debt is a staggering one hundred
and forty seven million dollars, even fifty percent shareholder Jeffizzo's
already worth four point seven billion dollars isn't willing to
chase good money after back, so pets dot com once
the poster a child for a thriving dot com announces
they're shutting down.
Speaker 1 (14:57):
What I know this amongst the failures is they think
if they just throw the words dot com at people,
they will come, and they won't come.
Speaker 9 (15:04):
There's cascading a line of companies waiting to go under unfortunately.
Speaker 6 (15:09):
So with the dot com bubble burst, it becomes clear
that you can't just market off of everything on the Internet,
or at least it'll be that way for a while,
and we get this kind of resurgence of art where
all these art platforms where you're distributing your art for
free pretty much are it switches again from create more
(15:33):
than consume. So we get this era of the Internet
after it's shown that not everything is profitable, just us
being online as profitable, where we really see a resurgence
of art. We get people like Annavoog we live in public,
live journal, zanga, blog spot. By two thousand and five,
theres YouTube, so in that collapse for a moment, these
(15:57):
things aren't monetized. And when I joined the Internet was
during this moment in the new new thing. Michael Lewis wrote,
people rushed onto the Internet the way people rushed into
the gold fields of eighteen forty nine without a map,
without a plan or a clue.
Speaker 11 (16:14):
So we've had.
Speaker 6 (16:15):
Billions of dollars poured into these startups that sold nothing,
solved nothing, and promised everything. Chris Sedgen said the Internet
was a blank canvas, and for a while, every terrible
painting looked valuable. And yet underneath this greed there was
something puwer. This belief in connection itself was so extremely valuable.
(16:37):
The simple fact that people could find each other was
enough that was huge within itself. It sounded like this,
Now we're going way beyond just web browsers. We have
these chatting platforms and chat room message boards.
Speaker 13 (17:02):
Online is making it easier for people to live, work
and play.
Speaker 10 (17:06):
Hey Dan, ready for the game.
Speaker 9 (17:07):
I'm just finishing up here.
Speaker 6 (17:08):
With my new kayaking friends.
Speaker 11 (17:09):
Kayaking friends on your computer.
Speaker 14 (17:11):
Yeah, I just got America online.
Speaker 11 (17:13):
Sounds great. Listen, I can't go to the game today.
What I've got to send something for my mom's birthday
it's tomorrow. Then book plane tickets for a trip next week,
and my kids got to go to the library to
look up dinosaurs.
Speaker 13 (17:23):
Hey, we can take care of all that before we go.
Speaker 11 (17:25):
Yeah right, Oh, with Americanline, America Online can do all.
Speaker 6 (17:29):
That chat GPT could never.
Speaker 4 (17:31):
All you do is click on marketplace, we place an order.
Speaker 13 (17:35):
Call now for America Online, a new way to use
your computer to communicate, have fun and get instant US
and information.
Speaker 1 (17:42):
Flowers are sent.
Speaker 9 (17:42):
Now, let's access the online travel service.
Speaker 13 (17:45):
How long have you had this? About a week?
Speaker 18 (17:47):
And it's so easy.
Speaker 9 (17:47):
All you do is point click.
Speaker 13 (17:49):
But how does it work? All you need is a
computer and a regular phone line.
Speaker 11 (17:52):
They send you the software and give you ten free
hours to check it out.
Speaker 13 (17:55):
Call now for your free America Online startup kid and
get free software and ten free online hours. It's everything
you need to get online.
Speaker 9 (18:03):
Plane tickets are ordered.
Speaker 10 (18:04):
Now, let's look up dinosaurs.
Speaker 13 (18:05):
What do you think Concience Encyclopedia or National Gym?
Speaker 6 (18:08):
No one was autistic in the ninety is the third
thing they do. Let's look up dinosaurs. That ten free
hours that AOL sent out would go quick though, and
eventually they're sending out one hundred hours free. I think
my first disc was actually for two hundred hours free.
And America Online came out with upgrades all the time.
It was still like this upgrade culture, constantly getting better.
(18:30):
Here's a more recent nineteen ninety eight commercial.
Speaker 19 (18:34):
America Online introduces new version four point zero.
Speaker 16 (18:37):
There has never been a better time to get online.
Speaker 19 (18:39):
The easiest just got easier.
Speaker 10 (18:41):
It's the messages.
Speaker 9 (18:42):
I customize my email.
Speaker 15 (18:43):
Manie sent me a picture.
Speaker 18 (18:44):
If you have a phone line, you can be online.
Speaker 1 (18:46):
It's the easiest way to keep up with old fridge.
Speaker 10 (18:48):
Everyone I know is on it.
Speaker 19 (18:49):
We've spent over one billion dollars to create a high
speed network and with fifty six K connections are faster
than ever.
Speaker 11 (18:54):
It's the ultimate local guide newbour point zero.
Speaker 16 (18:57):
Check it out.
Speaker 8 (18:57):
It's my connection to the world.
Speaker 19 (18:58):
America Online so easy to use, no wonder it's number
one sign up today.
Speaker 7 (19:03):
It's one big family.
Speaker 14 (19:04):
It was great.
Speaker 4 (19:05):
Everything on one hole in one place.
Speaker 8 (19:06):
As my buddy list, incredibly easy, twenty four hour customer service.
Speaker 14 (19:10):
My friend's email.
Speaker 19 (19:11):
Will brings the world to use my guide to the
whole internet.
Speaker 6 (19:14):
I love finding new musical.
Speaker 7 (19:18):
Instant messages from John.
Speaker 6 (19:20):
They have parental.
Speaker 4 (19:21):
Controls, very simple to use.
Speaker 5 (19:23):
Well has it all?
Speaker 15 (19:24):
Yeah, it's true, We've got out America Online.
Speaker 8 (19:26):
America Online.
Speaker 16 (19:27):
It's so easy to use.
Speaker 10 (19:28):
No murders number one.
Speaker 6 (19:30):
There was some things even then that were rumblings of
AI future to come. There was an online butler ask Jeeves,
but there was also an aim chat bot. I say aim,
not aim, I apologize. I also say jiff. There was
a chat bot called smarter Child. This is from thought
(19:52):
Process on YouTube. What happens is smarter child.
Speaker 15 (19:55):
The year is two thousand and one, and on a
messenger smarter Child was cussed out by millions of teenagers
around the world, including myself. But why were we also
mean to this chat bot?
Speaker 18 (20:08):
Oh?
Speaker 15 (20:08):
I would the story behind groundbreaking technology. Let's discover how
smarter Child lay the foundation for today's advanced DAI systems
like Chat, GPT, and Siri, all while being insulted by
the public on a daily basis. Robert Hoffer and Timothy
Kay were the creators who brought Peter Leviton on board
as the CEO. Peter Leviton was a seasoned advertising executive
(20:31):
who previously worked with companies like Haynes, Toyota, HP and
Johnson and Johnson. After discovering the early stages of digital marketing,
he joined Active Buddy where he and the team raised
thirty million dollars in startup funding. In June of two
thousand and one, smarter Child was introduced on aim platforms
by Active Buddy as a demonstration of their chat bought
(20:52):
AI technology. Their goal was to attract interest from businesses
and agencies that might want to utilize this technology. By
branding the AI as smarter Child, they were able to
demonstrate its capabilities free of charge to the general public.
It soon became available on other IM services like MSN
and Yahoo. Smarter Child was designed to be a conversational
(21:15):
companion that users could interact with using natural language. It
was meant to engage while providing a wide range of
functionality used to create instant messaging bots. Many in the
developer community were skeptical and argued that instant messenger bots
were in existence long before active Buddy filed for the patent.
(21:35):
Right after the patent was granted, Active Buddy released Buddy
Script SDK, a free developer kit which allowed programmers to
design and launch their own interactive agents. In two thousand
and one, Radioheads album Amnisiac featured the first chat bought
in the music industry, called Googling Minotaur Active Buddy Googling
(21:56):
Minotaur was available for AOL Instant Messenger users. The bot
was based on the character on the album's cover and
could be added to users' buddy lists. As years went on,
Active Buddy would go on to collaborate on many big
chatbot projects, including some for Austin Powers, Intel, and Keebler.
In two thousand and three, a New York Times article
(22:17):
stated two hundred and fifty thousand people were talking to
smarter Child every single day. Active Buddy would go on
to change its name and focus on making deals with
larger corporations. However, in two thousand and seven, Microsoft purchased
them and eventually shut down the automated service agent business,
including the very popular smarter Child. By the time smarter
(22:37):
Child blogged off for the first and only time, it
had over thirty million users on its Buddy list, and
over a trillion conversations were had in his lifetime between
all of the different instant messengers.
Speaker 6 (22:49):
Do you think they did with those conversations? Because I
definitely think they used it to train future AI. All
the chat features were incredible, getting to talk to people
this stuff. In the AOL commercial where she says, my
niece emailed me a picture that all felt like a
really really big deal. Still, I got my first webcam
I think in the year two thousand and it pretty
(23:11):
much looks like the webcam I have now that I
am shocked at how little the quality of webcams that
has improved, but it's still all felt like a purer time.
I spent most of my Internet time on live Journal,
which was like a daily blog account you saw your
friends post in chronological order. A lot of people used
Zanga and then Blogger, but for me and my friends,
(23:34):
it was all live Journal. I'm still so close with
so many of my live journal friends, and I still
update my live journal, not the one I made in
nineteen ninety nine because that got deleted and purged in
two thousand and three rip app at the overdose, but
the one I made in two thousand and two between
junior and senior year of high school, when I was
rebranding myself. I still have that one, and for me,
(23:56):
it's really incredible to be able to go back and
read twenty some years of memories. It did cause a
lot of like infighting and relationship drama, probably for me
until like twenty ten, but I mean, I met my
good friend Amber on live journal. We moved to New
York together, went and moved in with my friend Kelsey
from MySpace, her boyfriend Craig. So it was this time
(24:18):
of just really meeting people online, but then using it
to create and do things in real life. I mean,
there were still online bullying. It wasn't perfect by any means,
But while I was being online bullied, I wasn't also
being sold probiotics. So there's the reign of AOL, Yahoo
MSN In convergence culture, Henry Jenkins said, participation, not consumption,
(24:41):
is the key characteristic of early digital media. Sherry Turkle
of Life on Screen said the Internet allowed us to
cycle through selves, not deception but exploration. You could be
whoever you wanted, and for a little while you believed it.
Other than chain emails, Napster was a really big thing.
It felt like such a big deal that you could
(25:02):
spend three days and get to download a whole album.
But then anyone who had a Metallica song on their
computer got these c syn desist letters. So here's Lars
talking about Napster to the Huffington Post. I'm sorry to laugh,
as Winter just came.
Speaker 12 (25:18):
Out of the documentary called Downloaded, which rehashes that Napster staga.
We have a comment from one of our producers, Ricky
Cambalariy is saying, does Lars regret the way in which
he handled Napster back in the day. It said, the
music industry has lost billions not harnessing the power of
tech between during and after Napster.
Speaker 4 (25:36):
I'm not a guy who sort of carries regret around
with me on my shoulders.
Speaker 9 (25:39):
A lot.
Speaker 4 (25:41):
Regret about that thirteen years ago was that we were
not quite prepared. I think you used the word shit before,
so I'll say we weren't quite prepared for the shit storm.
That's sort of That's not what I said that we.
Speaker 10 (25:53):
Became engulfed in.
Speaker 4 (25:55):
You know, it started out as a street fight. It
was basically, you know, there was a song that we
were working on for the mission Impossible Too movie.
Speaker 2 (26:02):
Oh even worse, even worse.
Speaker 4 (26:04):
Real stations across the country. But it wasn't even mixed,
It wasn't even finalized.
Speaker 18 (26:08):
Oh care.
Speaker 12 (26:08):
It actually downloaded that when I was in college. I'm
excited about it. There you go, and you know what,
I bought the album when it came out.
Speaker 16 (26:14):
There you go.
Speaker 4 (26:15):
But so it sort of showed up on all these
radio stations across the country. We were like, so you.
Speaker 6 (26:20):
Sent as seats and to says to everyone who unapped
her on their commit extent.
Speaker 4 (26:23):
He traces back to something called napster, and we were like, well,
they're fucking with us, we'll fuck with them. And then
it sort of turned into a It started off a
street fight, and then like a month later it was
like whoa, okay, look at this, and then we were
sort of like a little bit like deer caught in headlights.
And then obviously we stood our ground and then fought
the fight. But obviously it was I mean, it was
(26:44):
a difficult time.
Speaker 6 (26:45):
I mean, it's not it was a difficult time. Give
me a break. And I want to talk about some
early internet creators that I was obsessed with. So there
was Anna Voog and since nineteen ninety seven she dreamed
her life unedited twenty four to seven. She said, the
real art is not the performance, it's surviving the exposure.
And then there's also Josh Harris who created We Live
(27:07):
in Public, where he locked one hundred artists in this
underground bunker. Every shower, every argument, every breakdown live stream
to the world. There's a documentary about it that came
out in two thousand and nine called We Live in Public,
and Josh said, everything is going to be public. We're
all going to live in public. It's just a matter
of time. And neither of them were wrong. They were
(27:28):
just early. In two thousand and five, it started to
feel like everything changed. That's when the landlords showed up.
It started with MySpace, which seemed great at first. It
was a little chaotic. Everyone knew HTML. Tom was our friend,
and then he sold the company. John Cheney Lippold said
(27:49):
in We Are Data, users shifted from creating identities for
self expression to creating them for strategic visibility. Enter Facebook,
saying Epdufecki says in t and Teargas what began as
a social connector transformed into an advertising empire fueled by
behavioral prediction. YouTube too had monetization roll out and sold
(28:12):
to Google. Live journals sold to Russia. Instagram came about,
and we got stuck in kind of where we've been
for the last twenty years now. Basically I didn't get
Instagram until twenty eleven, so I guess not twenty years,
but it feels like things have been the same since
Facebook came out. To me pretty much, it doesn't feel
(28:32):
that different, other than maybe TikTok and reels and all
of these things. But what I mean is it feels
like the for profit stuff that adds the algorithms, it
just stayed. It didn't get better, it got If anything,
it all just got worse.
Speaker 16 (28:48):
As government and more than forty states are suing Facebook.
They're accusing the social media company of using illegal tactics
to squash competition and eliminate rivals. The lawsuit is asking
the court to consider breaking up the company, which also
owns Instagram and WhatsApp.
Speaker 14 (29:03):
Categories do you store just Facebook store on the categories.
Speaker 2 (29:09):
That you collect, Senator? Can you clarify what you mean
by data?
Speaker 10 (29:14):
There are some past reports that have been out there
that indicate that that Facebook collects about ninety six data
categories for those two.
Speaker 6 (29:23):
Mark Zuckerberg April twenty.
Speaker 11 (29:26):
Two million data points that are being generated I think
at any time.
Speaker 6 (29:31):
From consumers globally.
Speaker 9 (29:33):
So how many do you does Facebook store out of that?
Speaker 5 (29:37):
Do you store any?
Speaker 2 (29:39):
Senator? I'm not actually sure what that is referring to.
Speaker 4 (29:43):
Can somebody call you up? And say I want to
see John Kennedy's file.
Speaker 2 (29:49):
Absolutely not, could you?
Speaker 11 (29:51):
If not not?
Speaker 8 (29:52):
Could you not?
Speaker 4 (29:53):
Would you do it?
Speaker 3 (29:54):
Could you do it?
Speaker 11 (29:56):
In theory, do you have the right to put.
Speaker 10 (29:59):
My name, my hand share for somebody.
Speaker 2 (30:03):
I do not believe we have the right to do that.
Speaker 11 (30:04):
Do you have the ability?
Speaker 2 (30:07):
The senator of the data is in the system, so
you have the ability. Technically, I think someone could do that,
but that would be a massive breach. So we would
never do that.
Speaker 6 (30:15):
Would never do that. Non to John Kennedy, non to us.
In January, there was a TikTok band for full twelve hours.
I think it's going to get banned and when this
seventy five days is up. But people lost their minds
back home.
Speaker 1 (30:28):
Now to the breaking news overnight social media app TikTok
going to ark as a US band goes into effect.
Speaker 13 (30:34):
ABC's Elizabeth Sholsey is in Washington.
Speaker 19 (30:36):
Elizabeth, you've been following all of this.
Speaker 13 (30:38):
Good morning to you.
Speaker 8 (30:39):
Hey, good morning Jill Well. Millions of Americans are waking
up this morning to a TikTok app where you can't
scroll or post. Instead, all you see is a message
that it's unavailable. TikTok is apologizing to users that the
app went dark as it now looks to President elect
Trump to turn the lights back on this morning.
Speaker 6 (30:53):
So that lasted for twelve hours, and then it came
up with like this, thank you, dear leader for saving TikTok.
Speaker 3 (30:59):
This is why.
Speaker 6 (30:59):
One of the reasons I think it's really important to
keep the Internet archive the way way back machine going,
because the wayback machine not way Way going. Because it's
so important to just have a record. And even though
the Internet, I remember doesn't exist anymore, I occasionally like
to check and just make sure that it really happens.
I think maybe a social media break would be good
(31:21):
for all of us. I've looked at my screen time
and it's just it's so bad. So I want to
just try and find a way again to use the
Internet to consume less and create more. I don't even
know if that's possible. Do you think it is? Have
we gone too far? All right? I'm signing offline, So
(31:49):
I think the Internet maybe has a chance to spin around.
But is it even up to us anymore? Do these
brands have so much control? Like everything is an ad
to me? And I mean ads are gonna start playing
after I finished saying this, so I'm very aware well
where I'm part of the problem. And even though I
(32:11):
just explained how we got here, I still don't know
how we got here. Does that make sense at all?
I thought things would be different, and I really hope
they still can be. Thank you for listening to another
episode of Broad's next Door.
Speaker 10 (32:27):
I hope you.
Speaker 6 (32:28):
Enjoyed this episode. If you did, please share it with
a friend, maybe an early Internet friend. If you really
enjoy it, please like, rate, and subscribe. It really helps
me out. Also, letting the ads play with that and
helps me out. I try not to put any in
the middle of the episode. Thank you again for listening.
You can find me on social media everywhere, at Daniellascrima
(32:49):
or at Broad's next Door. You can shop our merge
at Broad's next Door. I'm getting ready to put up
some q crop tops for summer. And also I've been
writing on my substack if that's interesting to anyone. It's
Danielle's scream UT's substack. So it's fun for me. I mean,
I updated like twice so far, but I'm hopeful I
(33:14):
will talk to you very soon. Got some wild episodes
coming up. Still working on Valley of the Dolls. It's
like a really deep one, but also have an Eileen
Warnos episode. My friend Kristen from Creative Sobriety is coming
back and we're going to do an episode about sleepover
(33:34):
rituals and spooky stuff. And we're also working on a
longer one about Stephen King and on writing and drinking.
So send me more suggestions. I love, love love hearing
your episode suggestions. I use a lot of them. Come
out and I'll talk to you very soon. Love you
very much. Bye,
No matter how large, no matter how small, we'll be
on the Internet in the year two thousand is.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
The primary way that people will look up information. It
will replace the Yellow Pages as we know it. Today
are a lot of.
Speaker 1 (00:11):
People just getting on to the Internet because they feel
that they have.
Speaker 3 (00:14):
To get onto the plane field, so to speak.
Speaker 4 (00:16):
But it's very shufful to be on the internet right now.
Speaker 1 (00:19):
There is violence at nbcge comm.
Speaker 5 (00:22):
I mean that's.
Speaker 6 (00:23):
Going to come out.
Speaker 7 (00:23):
Well, what Allison should know?
Speaker 8 (00:25):
When do you say that out?
Speaker 9 (00:26):
Anyway?
Speaker 5 (00:27):
Internet is that massive computer.
Speaker 10 (00:30):
Network, the one that's becoming really big.
Speaker 1 (00:33):
Now, what do you mean that's how does what?
Speaker 11 (00:36):
Do you write to it?
Speaker 5 (00:37):
Like mail? No, a lot of people use it and communicate.
I guess they can communicate with NBC writers and producers. Allison,
can you explain what Internet is?
Speaker 12 (00:44):
No, she can't say anything in ten seconds or less.
Speaker 5 (00:48):
I'm afraid that if I subscribe to something like Internet.
Speaker 6 (00:51):
You would really be hooked.
Speaker 5 (00:52):
I would get hooked and I would never, you know,
spend time with my family.
Speaker 3 (00:57):
Does it bother at all that these people that you
don't really know. I mean, everybody's signing on and having
these conversations and whining together or graping together or whatever
too with the people that I mean, I don't know,
I use a group therapy.
Speaker 13 (01:10):
The of the nineties.
Speaker 5 (01:11):
Well, I just as I mentioned, I have no desire
to be a part of the Internet, because I feel
like I'm so inundated with information all the time that
I don't really I don't want more. Don't you never
feel like it's just constant fumbardments.
Speaker 1 (01:25):
I guess the thing I'd resent most is I would
resent that you know, at least when you're home, if
the phone rings, you have the option of not answering it.
On the Internet, people can send you messages all time.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
You don't even write your phone.
Speaker 6 (01:34):
Hello, neighbors, lovers, friends, and lost websites. I'm Danielle Scrima
and this is Broad's next door. Turn up your dial
up modem and get ready to send this email to
ten friends before a LimeWire virus crashes the family desktop.
Because today we're getting a broader understanding of how the
(01:54):
Internet became an ad as we travel through the ghost
town of the old Internet through chain emails, live journal confessions,
MySpace portrayal, all while asking when did our online diaries
turn into shopping malls. When did our friendships turn into
feed suggestions? And what do we do now in a
world that feels more algorithm than human.
Speaker 1 (02:18):
What do President Clinton, conservative radio personality Rush Limbaugh, and
rock star Billy Idle have in common. They've all got
electronic mail addresses on computer systems linked to the Internet,
a global hookup that ferments computers to exchange information. In
nineteen eighty one, only two hundred and thirteen computers were
hooked to the Internet. As the new year begins, and
estimated two and a half million computers will be on
(02:40):
the net serving as money is twenty million people almost
two thousand and one. And the technologies that bring us telephones,
TV and computers are merging.
Speaker 14 (02:48):
Five years from now, We're not going to have distinct
to cable and telephone industries.
Speaker 10 (02:53):
It's going to be one industry.
Speaker 4 (02:55):
And there'll be companies carrying fits little pieces of information
from point A to point B.
Speaker 1 (03:00):
The University Research Network. A promotional video put out five
years ago by Apple Computer envisioned people talking to computer
terminals and to one another through video phone links. By
the year twenty ten, I Mike, what's up? It's already
coming true. In Soritos, California. Video phone services partament experiment
started by General Telephone and the local cable company. There
(03:21):
are also interactive TV channels where people order movies on
demand instead of driving to the local video store. It
spans the globe like a super highway. It is called
Internet the net to longtime users. Internet is a whole
group of networks. The net is made up of some
twelve thousand individual computer networks. Internet began back in nineteen
(03:44):
sixty nine.
Speaker 2 (03:45):
It was a tool of the Pentagon.
Speaker 1 (03:46):
Nowadays, just about anyone when the computer and a modem
can join in, usually for a nominal fee.
Speaker 14 (03:52):
When Carol Thorpes wants to know what's going on in
her community, she takes a walk to the computer in
her family room. Critics say, one day or is this
could turn out to be at a lead a system
one available only to people with a computer and a motive.
Phillips connects to Kupertino, California's city run network city net
and effort to harness the information explosion to allow the
(04:13):
high tech facts and figures between government, business schools, and citizens.
Speaker 1 (04:18):
Computers, databases, and consumer electronics designed to put vast amounts
of information users.
Speaker 6 (04:24):
Fingertips, Hi, Hello, how is everyone? I hope you're doing well.
I hope you enjoyed your weekend. I hope you're not
trapped in an endless doom scroll so deep that you
forget who you are. Not that that's ever happened to me.
I know a lot of people who are taking social
media breaks right now, and I really get it. I
(04:47):
feel like it's really easy to get lost these days.
And it made me start thinking a lot about the
Internet that I fell in love with, the messy, human, embarrassing,
beautiful inner. I kind of think it's been dead for
a long time. Not exactly in a dead Internet theory way,
but maybe. And the dead Internet theory is the idea
(05:11):
of what most of what we see online is automated
bought farms and clickbait algorithms regurgitating the same things manipulating
us into buying It kind of makes sense. When you
have to go through twenty ads to see one person
you actually follow, it doesn't feel human anymore. So I
(05:33):
get why people believe that, because I remember the Internet
when it was still live. I got my first computer
in August of nineteen ninety nine, the month I started
high school. Fourteen years old, fifty six K dial up
shrieking through the house. My first email was baby Doll
K eighty five DS, the K for Kirk Cobain, obviously
(05:54):
because I was and remained dramatic. But back then, the
Internet wasn't a brand, it wasn't an economy. It was
an invitation. I remember asking everyone at school do you
have email? Because I was so excited and I was
looking for people who could see me, and I found them.
I made lifelong friends. I moved across the country with
(06:17):
people I met in comment sections. The Internet did build
my real life, and then it started building something else,
something colder, something darker, something that I now barely recognize
and is definitely worse than anything I could have imagined
on my first GeoCities website. Can you imagine a world
(06:38):
where your existence online wasn't curated, bought, sold and fed
back to you, Because there was a time like that,
and then slowly, quietly, heartbreakingly, for profit, it became something else.
Speaker 10 (06:52):
I digress.
Speaker 6 (06:53):
I'm skipping ahead because before the Internet was this neighborhood
I'm telling you about, it was just a rumor. On
The Today Show in nineteen ninety four, Brant Gumbele stares
into the camera and asks, what is the Internet anyway?
Katie Kuric says, it's that massive computer network, the one
that's becoming really big now. No one really understood what
(07:15):
was happening. This is a clip from Dark Side of
the Nineties about the early nineties' website bust, bubble boom,
all that went down.
Speaker 8 (07:25):
Can you explain what internet is for?
Speaker 9 (07:27):
How it worked? That all mark with the A and
then the ring around it.
Speaker 15 (07:30):
At see, that's what I said, Casey, she thought.
Speaker 1 (07:33):
It was a buck.
Speaker 15 (07:33):
Yeah, the information is super Highway can be a confusing
mix of on rams and off ramps.
Speaker 9 (07:38):
The Internet starts as a military communication network in the
sixties and spends the next twenty years being further developed
in university computer science labs. But it was the creation
of the Worldwide Web in nineteen ninety, a series of
web pages connected by hyperlinks, that made the Internet become
something that the average person can use.
Speaker 16 (07:57):
Your link to literature, they are the world, your fingertips, the.
Speaker 10 (08:01):
Pre transfer of information in as accessible way as possible.
You know, we're going to make it so that anybody
can access anything from anywhere. I was like, well, that's
kind of a cool idea, and who better.
Speaker 9 (08:11):
To latch onto a cool new idea than baby boomers
Bill Clinton and Al Gore, and they get elected in
nineteen ninety three. The Worldwide Web is at the center
of the proposed tech based economy.
Speaker 17 (08:22):
Eisenhower had built the interstate highway system.
Speaker 10 (08:24):
Well, Clinton and Gore were going to bring in the
age of the information super Highway.
Speaker 9 (08:29):
Clinton makes good on his promise, but it gets some
much needed help from a company that builds an on
ramp to this new digital future.
Speaker 7 (08:36):
I'm Rosiencino, and I was a vice president of corporate
Communications at Netscape. I was the nineteenth employee, and I
believe this second female.
Speaker 9 (08:45):
There was me and a lot of established Silicon Valley
entrepreneur Jim.
Speaker 7 (08:50):
Clark became convinced in talking to Mark that the Internet
space was wide open for the taking. Yeah, this thing
that was right now being used for scientific purposes would
potentially be.
Speaker 10 (09:01):
Used for commercial purposes.
Speaker 7 (09:02):
He could envision that we might want to sell where
it all go, the vision that it could be usedful
you know, widespread communication in.
Speaker 9 (09:09):
The early nineties. The Web is slow and hard to navigate.
It's the domain of academics. And computer geeks, but Clark
and Andreessen have a vision to make the Web accessible
to everyone.
Speaker 2 (09:19):
We ended up sort of in the middle of the
night starting this project.
Speaker 11 (09:21):
What we were trying to do was put sort of
a human.
Speaker 4 (09:23):
Face on the Internet.
Speaker 9 (09:24):
True to its namesake, the browser is a navigator to
the web, making surfing as easy as point and click.
Speaker 10 (09:31):
Landscape Navigator was the first commercial version of a web browser.
Speaker 18 (09:36):
That spawned Apple Safari, it spawned Google Chrome. All of
a sudden, the power of the Internet that had been
there for years was available to everybody in an easy way,
point and click, the universal language.
Speaker 10 (09:49):
I'm Tia Hernandez and back in the nineties, I helped
launch the world Wide Web.
Speaker 7 (09:53):
That's a little money, let me let me let me
do that again.
Speaker 10 (09:56):
I was able to witness the birth of the world
Wide Web.
Speaker 9 (09:58):
I like that better.
Speaker 13 (10:00):
I don't want to take.
Speaker 15 (10:01):
Credit for any of that.
Speaker 17 (10:02):
It was foundational. This wasn't just a nice to have
having the browser was absolutely essential to internet commerce, for entertainment,
for communication, all these things.
Speaker 10 (10:15):
I'm Margaret O'Mara.
Speaker 17 (10:16):
I'm professor of history at the University of Washington and Seattle.
The very first email I sent outside of my building
was in late nineteen ninety three.
Speaker 10 (10:24):
I thought it was amazing if.
Speaker 14 (10:25):
Everybody listening to begin, let us introduce you to our.
Speaker 15 (10:30):
First college recruit demofact, first college recruit with.
Speaker 9 (10:34):
Netscape recruiting employees fresh out of college, traditional workplace culture
of tech giants like IBM is getting replaced. Geeks run
this startup and they write the rules as they go.
Speaker 7 (10:45):
Imagine going into a frat house and has an adult
living there, and that adult is Jim Clark, and Jim
Clark is trying to help a bunch of young college
boys figure out that they are now doing something that
has to be ready for business.
Speaker 10 (11:01):
Netscape people got into work and maybe didn't go home
that night, maybe worked all the way through the night.
Speaker 7 (11:06):
I have a nice.
Speaker 19 (11:07):
Couch, all matresson under there, I can sleep.
Speaker 10 (11:10):
Work became the life, and that was sort of the
only life you had that tied into that concept of
sort of manic innovation.
Speaker 19 (11:20):
That I worked too.
Speaker 10 (11:22):
Much long, pans.
Speaker 1 (11:27):
I have threatened.
Speaker 11 (11:28):
I don't know how many times.
Speaker 7 (11:29):
Mark represented sort of the this is what's coming, you know,
it's not this polished, you know, suit and tie kind
of thing, and.
Speaker 9 (11:36):
Reason's rise from geeky undergraduate to tech rock star is
whispered about in Silicon Valley, but a story goes mainstream
when he lands the cover of Time magazine a year.
Speaker 7 (11:47):
Into Netscape, Time Magazine saw how exciting all of this
was and how perfect Mark Andresen was, young and nerdy,
perfect for the moment. So they came up with this
idea of putting him on its role, kind of looking
like a guy who.
Speaker 4 (12:03):
Just came out of college.
Speaker 10 (12:06):
And he had no shoes on, and everybody gets focused
on his toenails.
Speaker 15 (12:10):
Find them this kid clipping his tone.
Speaker 9 (12:12):
Old at the time, twenty year old Microsoft rules the
personal computer market, but its founder Bill Gates is slow
to see the potential of the Internet, even dismissing it
as a fad to Tom Brocott in nineteen ninety four,
a lot.
Speaker 13 (12:25):
Of people just getting on to the Internet because they
feel that they have to get out on the playing field,
so to speak.
Speaker 11 (12:30):
Well, it's very ship to be on the Internet right now.
Speaker 9 (12:33):
But just a year later Gates realizes the net is
no fad. Microsoft begins developing Internet Explorer, a browser to
compete with Navigator. Netscape sees a war coming, one that
will require more money to wage.
Speaker 7 (12:45):
We were a young company.
Speaker 1 (12:46):
We needed going.
Speaker 9 (12:48):
To backs company to raise capital quickly, and that's just
what Netscape needs to compete with Microsoft. In the summer
of ninety five, this young company launches an IPO, an
initial public offering to sell shares to investors.
Speaker 7 (13:01):
We decided it really was to the advantage of to
seize the moment. Just seize the moment and go public,
even though we'd only been in business not even a
year and a half.
Speaker 1 (13:10):
At eleven am this morning, Netscape stock went public and
Wall Street went blonkers.
Speaker 10 (13:14):
Netscape when IPO August ninth, nineteen ninety five, also known
as the day Jerry Garcia died. Whether or not he
died in discuss is a discussion for the philosopher's.
Speaker 1 (13:23):
Socially offered at a price of twenty eight dollars a share,
Netscape shot up to seventy two.
Speaker 9 (13:27):
Within minutes, Netscape stock price explodes. Investers are anxious to
own a piece of the company that is bringing the
Internet to the world. Everyone was stocked in the company,
especially its founders and employees, is poised to get rich.
Speaker 10 (13:41):
In a room that was fully formed.
Speaker 9 (13:42):
Digital companies go public and celebrate as their stock price
is sore. Netscape, that company that got already started minds
itself being targeted by the most powerful corporation in tech, Microsoft,
Like every other dot com at the time, almost didn't
matter if it was going to succeed.
Speaker 15 (13:58):
There was still a future bet that made it a
successful opening, and so you couldn't really tell up from down.
Speaker 9 (14:05):
I think, but dot com frenzies on the decline. The
stock market has woken up to the reality that many
of these companies are losing much more money than they're making.
Speaker 17 (14:13):
The Internet may produce something else, the next big wave bankruptcies.
Speaker 1 (14:17):
The downslide has wiped sixteen billion dollars, and a lot
of ones promising companies are coming to the end of
the line.
Speaker 17 (14:24):
In March two thousands, the NASDAC hits its high geek
and starts going down and investors start getting cold feet,
and of course people get really excited as a group,
and then they're like, wait a minute, someone's starting to
sell Amazon.
Speaker 10 (14:36):
How I should sell it to?
Speaker 9 (14:37):
And dot COM's total debt is a staggering one hundred
and forty seven million dollars, even fifty percent shareholder Jeffizzo's
already worth four point seven billion dollars isn't willing to
chase good money after back, so pets dot com once
the poster a child for a thriving dot com announces
they're shutting down.
Speaker 1 (14:57):
What I know this amongst the failures is they think
if they just throw the words dot com at people,
they will come, and they won't come.
Speaker 9 (15:04):
There's cascading a line of companies waiting to go under unfortunately.
Speaker 6 (15:09):
So with the dot com bubble burst, it becomes clear
that you can't just market off of everything on the Internet,
or at least it'll be that way for a while,
and we get this kind of resurgence of art where
all these art platforms where you're distributing your art for
free pretty much are it switches again from create more
(15:33):
than consume. So we get this era of the Internet
after it's shown that not everything is profitable, just us
being online as profitable, where we really see a resurgence
of art. We get people like Annavoog we live in public,
live journal, zanga, blog spot. By two thousand and five,
theres YouTube, so in that collapse for a moment, these
(15:57):
things aren't monetized. And when I joined the Internet was
during this moment in the new new thing. Michael Lewis wrote,
people rushed onto the Internet the way people rushed into
the gold fields of eighteen forty nine without a map,
without a plan or a clue.
Speaker 11 (16:14):
So we've had.
Speaker 6 (16:15):
Billions of dollars poured into these startups that sold nothing,
solved nothing, and promised everything. Chris Sedgen said the Internet
was a blank canvas, and for a while, every terrible
painting looked valuable. And yet underneath this greed there was
something puwer. This belief in connection itself was so extremely valuable.
(16:37):
The simple fact that people could find each other was
enough that was huge within itself. It sounded like this,
Now we're going way beyond just web browsers. We have
these chatting platforms and chat room message boards.
Speaker 13 (17:02):
Online is making it easier for people to live, work
and play.
Speaker 10 (17:06):
Hey Dan, ready for the game.
Speaker 9 (17:07):
I'm just finishing up here.
Speaker 6 (17:08):
With my new kayaking friends.
Speaker 11 (17:09):
Kayaking friends on your computer.
Speaker 14 (17:11):
Yeah, I just got America online.
Speaker 11 (17:13):
Sounds great. Listen, I can't go to the game today.
What I've got to send something for my mom's birthday
it's tomorrow. Then book plane tickets for a trip next week,
and my kids got to go to the library to
look up dinosaurs.
Speaker 13 (17:23):
Hey, we can take care of all that before we go.
Speaker 11 (17:25):
Yeah right, Oh, with Americanline, America Online can do all.
Speaker 6 (17:29):
That chat GPT could never.
Speaker 4 (17:31):
All you do is click on marketplace, we place an order.
Speaker 13 (17:35):
Call now for America Online, a new way to use
your computer to communicate, have fun and get instant US
and information.
Speaker 1 (17:42):
Flowers are sent.
Speaker 9 (17:42):
Now, let's access the online travel service.
Speaker 13 (17:45):
How long have you had this? About a week?
Speaker 18 (17:47):
And it's so easy.
Speaker 9 (17:47):
All you do is point click.
Speaker 13 (17:49):
But how does it work? All you need is a
computer and a regular phone line.
Speaker 11 (17:52):
They send you the software and give you ten free
hours to check it out.
Speaker 13 (17:55):
Call now for your free America Online startup kid and
get free software and ten free online hours. It's everything
you need to get online.
Speaker 9 (18:03):
Plane tickets are ordered.
Speaker 10 (18:04):
Now, let's look up dinosaurs.
Speaker 13 (18:05):
What do you think Concience Encyclopedia or National Gym?
Speaker 6 (18:08):
No one was autistic in the ninety is the third
thing they do. Let's look up dinosaurs. That ten free
hours that AOL sent out would go quick though, and
eventually they're sending out one hundred hours free. I think
my first disc was actually for two hundred hours free.
And America Online came out with upgrades all the time.
It was still like this upgrade culture, constantly getting better.
(18:30):
Here's a more recent nineteen ninety eight commercial.
Speaker 19 (18:34):
America Online introduces new version four point zero.
Speaker 16 (18:37):
There has never been a better time to get online.
Speaker 19 (18:39):
The easiest just got easier.
Speaker 10 (18:41):
It's the messages.
Speaker 9 (18:42):
I customize my email.
Speaker 15 (18:43):
Manie sent me a picture.
Speaker 18 (18:44):
If you have a phone line, you can be online.
Speaker 1 (18:46):
It's the easiest way to keep up with old fridge.
Speaker 10 (18:48):
Everyone I know is on it.
Speaker 19 (18:49):
We've spent over one billion dollars to create a high
speed network and with fifty six K connections are faster
than ever.
Speaker 11 (18:54):
It's the ultimate local guide newbour point zero.
Speaker 16 (18:57):
Check it out.
Speaker 8 (18:57):
It's my connection to the world.
Speaker 19 (18:58):
America Online so easy to use, no wonder it's number
one sign up today.
Speaker 7 (19:03):
It's one big family.
Speaker 14 (19:04):
It was great.
Speaker 4 (19:05):
Everything on one hole in one place.
Speaker 8 (19:06):
As my buddy list, incredibly easy, twenty four hour customer service.
Speaker 14 (19:10):
My friend's email.
Speaker 19 (19:11):
Will brings the world to use my guide to the
whole internet.
Speaker 6 (19:14):
I love finding new musical.
Speaker 7 (19:18):
Instant messages from John.
Speaker 6 (19:20):
They have parental.
Speaker 4 (19:21):
Controls, very simple to use.
Speaker 5 (19:23):
Well has it all?
Speaker 15 (19:24):
Yeah, it's true, We've got out America Online.
Speaker 8 (19:26):
America Online.
Speaker 16 (19:27):
It's so easy to use.
Speaker 10 (19:28):
No murders number one.
Speaker 6 (19:30):
There was some things even then that were rumblings of
AI future to come. There was an online butler ask Jeeves,
but there was also an aim chat bot. I say aim,
not aim, I apologize. I also say jiff. There was
a chat bot called smarter Child. This is from thought
(19:52):
Process on YouTube. What happens is smarter child.
Speaker 15 (19:55):
The year is two thousand and one, and on a
messenger smarter Child was cussed out by millions of teenagers
around the world, including myself. But why were we also
mean to this chat bot?
Speaker 18 (20:08):
Oh?
Speaker 15 (20:08):
I would the story behind groundbreaking technology. Let's discover how
smarter Child lay the foundation for today's advanced DAI systems
like Chat, GPT, and Siri, all while being insulted by
the public on a daily basis. Robert Hoffer and Timothy
Kay were the creators who brought Peter Leviton on board
as the CEO. Peter Leviton was a seasoned advertising executive
(20:31):
who previously worked with companies like Haynes, Toyota, HP and
Johnson and Johnson. After discovering the early stages of digital marketing,
he joined Active Buddy where he and the team raised
thirty million dollars in startup funding. In June of two
thousand and one, smarter Child was introduced on aim platforms
by Active Buddy as a demonstration of their chat bought
(20:52):
AI technology. Their goal was to attract interest from businesses
and agencies that might want to utilize this technology. By
branding the AI as smarter Child, they were able to
demonstrate its capabilities free of charge to the general public.
It soon became available on other IM services like MSN
and Yahoo. Smarter Child was designed to be a conversational
(21:15):
companion that users could interact with using natural language. It
was meant to engage while providing a wide range of
functionality used to create instant messaging bots. Many in the
developer community were skeptical and argued that instant messenger bots
were in existence long before active Buddy filed for the patent.
(21:35):
Right after the patent was granted, Active Buddy released Buddy
Script SDK, a free developer kit which allowed programmers to
design and launch their own interactive agents. In two thousand
and one, Radioheads album Amnisiac featured the first chat bought
in the music industry, called Googling Minotaur Active Buddy Googling
(21:56):
Minotaur was available for AOL Instant Messenger users. The bot
was based on the character on the album's cover and
could be added to users' buddy lists. As years went on,
Active Buddy would go on to collaborate on many big
chatbot projects, including some for Austin Powers, Intel, and Keebler.
In two thousand and three, a New York Times article
(22:17):
stated two hundred and fifty thousand people were talking to
smarter Child every single day. Active Buddy would go on
to change its name and focus on making deals with
larger corporations. However, in two thousand and seven, Microsoft purchased
them and eventually shut down the automated service agent business,
including the very popular smarter Child. By the time smarter
(22:37):
Child blogged off for the first and only time, it
had over thirty million users on its Buddy list, and
over a trillion conversations were had in his lifetime between
all of the different instant messengers.
Speaker 6 (22:49):
Do you think they did with those conversations? Because I
definitely think they used it to train future AI. All
the chat features were incredible, getting to talk to people
this stuff. In the AOL commercial where she says, my
niece emailed me a picture that all felt like a
really really big deal. Still, I got my first webcam
I think in the year two thousand and it pretty
(23:11):
much looks like the webcam I have now that I
am shocked at how little the quality of webcams that
has improved, but it's still all felt like a purer time.
I spent most of my Internet time on live Journal,
which was like a daily blog account you saw your
friends post in chronological order. A lot of people used
Zanga and then Blogger, but for me and my friends,
(23:34):
it was all live Journal. I'm still so close with
so many of my live journal friends, and I still
update my live journal, not the one I made in
nineteen ninety nine because that got deleted and purged in
two thousand and three rip app at the overdose, but
the one I made in two thousand and two between
junior and senior year of high school, when I was
rebranding myself. I still have that one, and for me,
(23:56):
it's really incredible to be able to go back and
read twenty some years of memories. It did cause a
lot of like infighting and relationship drama, probably for me
until like twenty ten, but I mean, I met my
good friend Amber on live journal. We moved to New
York together, went and moved in with my friend Kelsey
from MySpace, her boyfriend Craig. So it was this time
(24:18):
of just really meeting people online, but then using it
to create and do things in real life. I mean,
there were still online bullying. It wasn't perfect by any means,
But while I was being online bullied, I wasn't also
being sold probiotics. So there's the reign of AOL, Yahoo
MSN In convergence culture, Henry Jenkins said, participation, not consumption,
(24:41):
is the key characteristic of early digital media. Sherry Turkle
of Life on Screen said the Internet allowed us to
cycle through selves, not deception but exploration. You could be
whoever you wanted, and for a little while you believed it.
Other than chain emails, Napster was a really big thing.
It felt like such a big deal that you could
(25:02):
spend three days and get to download a whole album.
But then anyone who had a Metallica song on their
computer got these c syn desist letters. So here's Lars
talking about Napster to the Huffington Post. I'm sorry to laugh,
as Winter just came.
Speaker 12 (25:18):
Out of the documentary called Downloaded, which rehashes that Napster staga.
We have a comment from one of our producers, Ricky
Cambalariy is saying, does Lars regret the way in which
he handled Napster back in the day. It said, the
music industry has lost billions not harnessing the power of
tech between during and after Napster.
Speaker 4 (25:36):
I'm not a guy who sort of carries regret around
with me on my shoulders.
Speaker 9 (25:39):
A lot.
Speaker 4 (25:41):
Regret about that thirteen years ago was that we were
not quite prepared. I think you used the word shit before,
so I'll say we weren't quite prepared for the shit storm.
That's sort of That's not what I said that we.
Speaker 10 (25:53):
Became engulfed in.
Speaker 4 (25:55):
You know, it started out as a street fight. It
was basically, you know, there was a song that we
were working on for the mission Impossible Too movie.
Speaker 2 (26:02):
Oh even worse, even worse.
Speaker 4 (26:04):
Real stations across the country. But it wasn't even mixed,
It wasn't even finalized.
Speaker 18 (26:08):
Oh care.
Speaker 12 (26:08):
It actually downloaded that when I was in college. I'm
excited about it. There you go, and you know what,
I bought the album when it came out.
Speaker 16 (26:14):
There you go.
Speaker 4 (26:15):
But so it sort of showed up on all these
radio stations across the country. We were like, so you.
Speaker 6 (26:20):
Sent as seats and to says to everyone who unapped
her on their commit extent.
Speaker 4 (26:23):
He traces back to something called napster, and we were like, well,
they're fucking with us, we'll fuck with them. And then
it sort of turned into a It started off a
street fight, and then like a month later it was
like whoa, okay, look at this, and then we were
sort of like a little bit like deer caught in headlights.
And then obviously we stood our ground and then fought
the fight. But obviously it was I mean, it was
(26:44):
a difficult time.
Speaker 6 (26:45):
I mean, it's not it was a difficult time. Give
me a break. And I want to talk about some
early internet creators that I was obsessed with. So there
was Anna Voog and since nineteen ninety seven she dreamed
her life unedited twenty four to seven. She said, the
real art is not the performance, it's surviving the exposure.
And then there's also Josh Harris who created We Live
(27:07):
in Public, where he locked one hundred artists in this
underground bunker. Every shower, every argument, every breakdown live stream
to the world. There's a documentary about it that came
out in two thousand and nine called We Live in Public,
and Josh said, everything is going to be public. We're
all going to live in public. It's just a matter
of time. And neither of them were wrong. They were
(27:28):
just early. In two thousand and five, it started to
feel like everything changed. That's when the landlords showed up.
It started with MySpace, which seemed great at first. It
was a little chaotic. Everyone knew HTML. Tom was our friend,
and then he sold the company. John Cheney Lippold said
(27:49):
in We Are Data, users shifted from creating identities for
self expression to creating them for strategic visibility. Enter Facebook,
saying Epdufecki says in t and Teargas what began as
a social connector transformed into an advertising empire fueled by
behavioral prediction. YouTube too had monetization roll out and sold
(28:12):
to Google. Live journals sold to Russia. Instagram came about,
and we got stuck in kind of where we've been
for the last twenty years now. Basically I didn't get
Instagram until twenty eleven, so I guess not twenty years,
but it feels like things have been the same since
Facebook came out. To me pretty much, it doesn't feel
(28:32):
that different, other than maybe TikTok and reels and all
of these things. But what I mean is it feels
like the for profit stuff that adds the algorithms, it
just stayed. It didn't get better, it got If anything,
it all just got worse.
Speaker 16 (28:48):
As government and more than forty states are suing Facebook.
They're accusing the social media company of using illegal tactics
to squash competition and eliminate rivals. The lawsuit is asking
the court to consider breaking up the company, which also
owns Instagram and WhatsApp.
Speaker 14 (29:03):
Categories do you store just Facebook store on the categories.
Speaker 2 (29:09):
That you collect, Senator? Can you clarify what you mean
by data?
Speaker 10 (29:14):
There are some past reports that have been out there
that indicate that that Facebook collects about ninety six data
categories for those two.
Speaker 6 (29:23):
Mark Zuckerberg April twenty.
Speaker 11 (29:26):
Two million data points that are being generated I think
at any time.
Speaker 6 (29:31):
From consumers globally.
Speaker 9 (29:33):
So how many do you does Facebook store out of that?
Speaker 5 (29:37):
Do you store any?
Speaker 2 (29:39):
Senator? I'm not actually sure what that is referring to.
Speaker 4 (29:43):
Can somebody call you up? And say I want to
see John Kennedy's file.
Speaker 2 (29:49):
Absolutely not, could you?
Speaker 11 (29:51):
If not not?
Speaker 8 (29:52):
Could you not?
Speaker 4 (29:53):
Would you do it?
Speaker 3 (29:54):
Could you do it?
Speaker 11 (29:56):
In theory, do you have the right to put.
Speaker 10 (29:59):
My name, my hand share for somebody.
Speaker 2 (30:03):
I do not believe we have the right to do that.
Speaker 11 (30:04):
Do you have the ability?
Speaker 2 (30:07):
The senator of the data is in the system, so
you have the ability. Technically, I think someone could do that,
but that would be a massive breach. So we would
never do that.
Speaker 6 (30:15):
Would never do that. Non to John Kennedy, non to us.
In January, there was a TikTok band for full twelve hours.
I think it's going to get banned and when this
seventy five days is up. But people lost their minds
back home.
Speaker 1 (30:28):
Now to the breaking news overnight social media app TikTok
going to ark as a US band goes into effect.
Speaker 13 (30:34):
ABC's Elizabeth Sholsey is in Washington.
Speaker 19 (30:36):
Elizabeth, you've been following all of this.
Speaker 13 (30:38):
Good morning to you.
Speaker 8 (30:39):
Hey, good morning Jill Well. Millions of Americans are waking
up this morning to a TikTok app where you can't
scroll or post. Instead, all you see is a message
that it's unavailable. TikTok is apologizing to users that the
app went dark as it now looks to President elect
Trump to turn the lights back on this morning.
Speaker 6 (30:53):
So that lasted for twelve hours, and then it came
up with like this, thank you, dear leader for saving TikTok.
Speaker 3 (30:59):
This is why.
Speaker 6 (30:59):
One of the reasons I think it's really important to
keep the Internet archive the way way back machine going,
because the wayback machine not way Way going. Because it's
so important to just have a record. And even though
the Internet, I remember doesn't exist anymore, I occasionally like
to check and just make sure that it really happens.
I think maybe a social media break would be good
(31:21):
for all of us. I've looked at my screen time
and it's just it's so bad. So I want to
just try and find a way again to use the
Internet to consume less and create more. I don't even
know if that's possible. Do you think it is? Have
we gone too far? All right? I'm signing offline, So
(31:49):
I think the Internet maybe has a chance to spin around.
But is it even up to us anymore? Do these
brands have so much control? Like everything is an ad
to me? And I mean ads are gonna start playing
after I finished saying this, so I'm very aware well
where I'm part of the problem. And even though I
(32:11):
just explained how we got here, I still don't know
how we got here. Does that make sense at all?
I thought things would be different, and I really hope
they still can be. Thank you for listening to another
episode of Broad's next Door.
Speaker 10 (32:27):
I hope you.
Speaker 6 (32:28):
Enjoyed this episode. If you did, please share it with
a friend, maybe an early Internet friend. If you really
enjoy it, please like, rate, and subscribe. It really helps
me out. Also, letting the ads play with that and
helps me out. I try not to put any in
the middle of the episode. Thank you again for listening.
You can find me on social media everywhere, at Daniellascrima
(32:49):
or at Broad's next Door. You can shop our merge
at Broad's next Door. I'm getting ready to put up
some q crop tops for summer. And also I've been
writing on my substack if that's interesting to anyone. It's
Danielle's scream UT's substack. So it's fun for me. I mean,
I updated like twice so far, but I'm hopeful I
(33:14):
will talk to you very soon. Got some wild episodes
coming up. Still working on Valley of the Dolls. It's
like a really deep one, but also have an Eileen
Warnos episode. My friend Kristen from Creative Sobriety is coming
back and we're going to do an episode about sleepover
(33:34):
rituals and spooky stuff. And we're also working on a
longer one about Stephen King and on writing and drinking.
So send me more suggestions. I love, love love hearing
your episode suggestions. I use a lot of them. Come
out and I'll talk to you very soon. Love you
very much. Bye,
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