Chris Sherman
12-06-2004, 01:15 PM
Though it seems hard to believe, the first search engines emerged just over a decade ago. Prior to that, people had to feel their way around the Internet with clumsy, unreliable tools. "Being online" was possible, but it wasn't easy.
Despite this, many people predicted a bright future for the Internet. At a the Internet World/Document Delivery conference (a precursor to Search Engine Strategies) in 1993, current Jupitermedia CEO Alan Meckler predicted that the Internet would be bigger than the PC in terms of marketing and entrepreneurial opportunities. "It's now 1977 and we're in Steve Jobs' garage," he said.
Today's SearchDay article, The Future of the Internet, Eleven Years Ago (http://searchenginewatch.com/searchday/article.php/3443991), surfaces a Usenet posting that reported on this conference. It reads like a blog posting, and offers fascinating insights into the time just before the "big bang" of Internet growth that occurred in the mid-90s.
Remarkably, none of the speakers (even Ask Jeeves co-founder Garrett Gruener) directly mention search as the killer app of the future. Of course, the web was still tiny in 1993, but it's still fascinating that such a huge, developing megatrend was all but invisible to the key players in the online information industry of the day.
Comments welcome!
Despite this, many people predicted a bright future for the Internet. At a the Internet World/Document Delivery conference (a precursor to Search Engine Strategies) in 1993, current Jupitermedia CEO Alan Meckler predicted that the Internet would be bigger than the PC in terms of marketing and entrepreneurial opportunities. "It's now 1977 and we're in Steve Jobs' garage," he said.
Today's SearchDay article, The Future of the Internet, Eleven Years Ago (http://searchenginewatch.com/searchday/article.php/3443991), surfaces a Usenet posting that reported on this conference. It reads like a blog posting, and offers fascinating insights into the time just before the "big bang" of Internet growth that occurred in the mid-90s.
Remarkably, none of the speakers (even Ask Jeeves co-founder Garrett Gruener) directly mention search as the killer app of the future. Of course, the web was still tiny in 1993, but it's still fascinating that such a huge, developing megatrend was all but invisible to the key players in the online information industry of the day.
Comments welcome!