subject: A Brief Personal History of High Speed Internet [print this page] A Brief Personal History of High Speed Internet
I'm one of those early adopters of cool technology. Sure, it means I pay more sometime a lot more to have the cool stuff early, but I don't mind because I'm totally a technophile. I love technology, primarily the internet, and I'm old enough to remember well when there wasn't such a thing. This means I've traveled the full length of the path that's brought us to today.
Remember the first website you ever visited? I do. It was Ford Motor Company's corporate website. I don't know what I was doing there, but that was my first experience with the World Wide Web. Remember the first time you ever saw a "dot com" television commercial? I do. It was an advertisement for NASDAQ and their website URL appeared at the bottom of the screen at the end of the commercial.
I also remember the day I bought my first 28.8bps dialup modem. No longer would images take an hour to download. They only took a half hour! The first Flash website I ever saw was from a German marketing company, and it was just about the coolest thing I'd ever seen. All this seems forever ago, and maybe in terms of technology it is, but we're only talking back to the early- to mid-1990s. Oh how things have changed, eh?
Today I have about a dozen tabs open in my browser window, my Outlook is never shut down, frequently my iTunes is playing something catchy from this decade, and I'm chatting with my fingers on one of my Instant Messengers. I also spend a lot of time in the world of social networking, blogging, and social media.
As a personal hobby I write for, and maintain, at least three personal blogs. Of course I have them tied to all my social networking outlets like Facebook, Twitter, and Digg. One of my blogs is all about sports, another is about all the movies I've watched so far this year, and a new on e I launched is just me writing about the contents of my daydreams. It's a bit of a social experiment and one that I hope turns into something interesting.
See, that's the power of high speed internet today, and it's something that was always there but needed to be developed, nurtured, and matured. Each person today has the ability to stop being a pure consumer of news and information and becoming an actual creator and contributor. That's the power of social networking and social media. Each person can be armed with the ability to instantly report something of interest, or breaking news happening right in their neighborhood. Citizens of the World Wide Web today are the eyes and ears of the world.
All of this is possible because companies like Cox invested heavily in creating high-speed internet, wireless technology, and robust applications. Take advantage of the high speed internet in a Cox Cable bundle and transform yourself from citizen to netizen in no time at all!
