Connecting

My first time...

 “Any idea that does not seem insane at first is not worth pursuing.” Albert Einstein

Do you remember how you accessed & experienced the internet or World Wide Web (WWW) for the first time? It was all about connecting, literally & figuratively. One of my first tastes of the internet was about the time it was starting its transition to the World Wide Web. It was all text based, no pictures or videos or hyperlinks.  I used a modem to ‘dial-up’ a bulletin board service setup locally by two of our high school students. Hence, it was the only free access available and very limited. I remember subscribing to a couple lists for topics of interest to me at that time. We also chatted about techie stuff. For the high school students it was mostly about connecting with others to play games and chat online. It wasn’t long after my first taste of the internet that I subscribed to AOL just to have email to connect with family. Dialup internet using AOL was my first email experience. There was a monthly fee of $9.95 just to have the service and you had to pay long distance phone charges ‘per minute’ that you were logged on! I had to setup my account to connect, send/receive messages and quickly log off. I read and composed my emails when I wasn’t connected (off-line). That was only the beginning of paying a monthly fee for Internet service and it was for the slowest most unreliable access ever! Remember, I lived in a very rural area with old telephone lines. There wasn’t a whole lot you could get done on the internet, due to the lack of speed and you were paying not much less than we are now for a high-speed wireless connection. So for many years dial-up was my connection to the world. When a local internet provider put one of their first rural wireless antennae up on a grain bin five miles from my house I was signed up and setup the very first week. Still wonder how I survived dial-up as long as I did.  Being connected with others and for information, is (or should be) a very important part of our lives. The internet/WWW has made it possible. Connecting; it’s how we survive, how we learn, and how we love.

Today the concept is the same and it’s called Social Media, ie: Facebook, Twitter, Blogs, YouTube, LinkedIn, Flickr, Skype and of course there’s still email. All of them made possible by the internet/WWW.

Will you please tell me about your first time…?

Did you realize you were connecting to be connected to someone or something?

Oh, Déjà vu…we’ve come a long way baby!

Connections, Internet, email, World Wide Web, social media, wireless, Facebook, Twitter, Blogs, YouTube, LinkedIn, Flickr, Skype, chat, bulletin board