It was 10 years ago this month that I began to build my personal Web site, which eventually grew into photo.net and philip.greenspun.com. In December 1993 hardly anyone cared about the Internet or World Wide Web. Hal Abelson, one of our professors, thought the Web was interesting. My friend Brian LaMacchia got motivated to set up an HTTP daemon on our Unix file server. Our classmate Jonathan Rees built a CGI library so that we could write Web scripts in Scheme (a dialect of Lisp). I began playing around in the hopes that I’d be able to write collaborative networked computer applications without having to build user interface code for every possible operating system. Zak Kohane, a professor at Harvard Medical School and doctor at Children’s Hospital, taught me enough SQL that we could build a Web interface to the Children’s Oracle clinical care database. Nearly everyone to whom we mentioned our little obsession said that we were wasting our time and that nothing especially interesting was going to come out of the Web protocols.
And now, after just 10 years, there are 30+ Internet cafes in Ushuaia, Argentina, the capital of Tierra del Fuego and the southernmost city in the world (54 degrees south latitude)…
Speaking of nostalgia: I discovered Lexis-Nexis about ten years ago. I thought it was the greatest thing since the invention of the printing press. I spent hours in front of the terminal (this was at the management library at Cornell) typing keywords into the search function. I still have some of the articles in three-ring binders on my bookshelf. In some ways, Lexis-Nexis is better than the Web.
I still think some philanthropist should buy Lexis-Nexis and make the whole database available, free, to everyone (this would be similar to the Public Library of Science project).
So how do you feel the last 10 years have gone for the Web? What’s been the most successful thing to come of it, what’s still left to do? Any New Years predictions?
11 years ago on this day in 1992 I believe I was in Calafate on my way to Los Glaciares. I had just spent a few days in Ushaia. It sounds like it has changed a bit. I went through Ushaia a second time in 1995 on my way to Antarctica and they had just built a new luxury hotel up the hill from town. Sounds like the Internet cafe’s have really proliferated.
The Chileans might disagree with the southernmost city designation of Ushaia. I think they still claim Puerto Williams is an actual city and not just a Naval base.
I think I have been following your sites since photo.net/philg sometime in ’97/98.
What a difference a decade makes. I found myself with a laptop for 4 days but outside of the range of the cellular/handy phone modem. Wow, a laptop without internet access; it seemed as useful as a one legged chair. So pervasive that we don’t notice until it is gone….then you notice, like a cold night a home when the electricity goes off, you notice.
Congratulations on 10 great years. Even if photo.net today has lost some image, it is still a wonderful achievement, setting the standard of excellence in web communities, not forgetting the ACS toolkit built to support it.
I visited “travels with Samantha” and the start of photo.net for the first time back around late 1994/early 1995. In the 2. half of the 90-ties learned a lot from your generous sharing of what you learned building database backed websites. While I did not get mega rich from the .com bubble, at least I earned enough that I needed the help of photo.net to turn money in the bank into an arsenal of lenses, Swiss made ballheads etc. Thank you very much 😉
Regarding Alex’s comment about Lexis-Nexis, I have a personal anecdote to share.
Lexis-Nexis positively revolutionized the research intensive college policy debate circuit. Research instantly became more specific, targeted, and copious as there was no less of a need to handle photocopies and to manually search through physical documents for keywords. The quality of research in many regards increased, but the changes haven’t all been positive.
Because current copyright law makes it impossible to digitize the Library of Congress (and everything else for that matter), the body of research available is biased by the fact that news and selected journals are so much easier to research than books. Topics that are discussed more completely in monographs are generally undercovered, and the premium on updated information has caused a sort of echo chamber of the claims of pundits and staff writers rather than the somewhat more careful positioning found in longer texts.
Er, that should read “less of a need”. Philip, could we get a preview button?
Philip – are you taking credit for helping to grow the internet?
As a fellow Bostonian I currently sit in an Internet cafe in Marrakech, Morocco reading your blog. A few days ago it was from the capital city of Morocco, Rabat. It is amazing how fast it has spread to places where PC’s aren’t really “personal” as they are still too expensive. Yet, most people I meet have an email address and check it frequently. Furthermore, the Internet cafes are very inexpensive.
Congratulations! I’ve been along w/ you on the ride for six odd years and have learned much from your willingness to share and teach. I was elated at discovering you, happy then sad for ArsDigita, and thrilled to see your ideas continue afterward. I loaned out my tattered copy of PandA several times before finally “loaning” it permenantly to the son of a neighbor who helped me move. Hopefully he will be inspired by your work as much as I was. Here’s to 100 more.
Hmmm… About 10 years ago I think I had just discovered PASCAL and spent a lot of time writing code on a 386!! I had no idea what “email” or the “web” was back then. I “discovered” the web in 1995 when I came to the US and it certainly has been one wild ride since then. Now that the web is all pervasive, at least in the developed countries, I wonder what one can expect in the next 10 years. It’s hard to imagine anything really drastic happening but then again that was the basis for the initial blog posting!!
PS: For what it’s worth I think photo.net is one of the best sites around and if nothing else it sparked my interest in photography.
Cheers,
Sreenivas
I used to spend hours everyday reading the ABUSENET. Now I am sick and tired of the World Wide Spam. I can’t seem to find much creativity online any more. Nothing on slashdot sounds like cutting edge. The best of craigslist are all the same. Would somebody please come up with the next big thing before I turn to religion?
Phil – Thanks very much for posting GOOD info online. So often the info posted, when not commercial in nature and therefore surrounded by flashing ads, popups etc., is not GOOD into. I used your “21 minutes to html” and thought it was cool. So, thanks!
Bring back GEnie
I think the first web pages of Philip’s I read were Travels With Samantha, in maybe 1995 (the same year my own web site went on line). And in 1997 I reviewed Database Backed Web Sites.
I’ve only just become interested in photography in the last year (my first digital camera) and have been looking at photo.net again.