A Trip Back In Internet History
You know those little news segments like “This Day in History?” Well, Boing Boing runs a story entitled “This Day in Blogging History” each day. It's fun to see the blog posts of news from cheap hosting site all around the Web from years ago.
Let's look at a few they point out, and a couple of others of interest which I've discovered.
A Trip Back In Internet History: ONE YEAR AGO
The day was August 17, 2012. On this day, Techdirt's online store began offering t-shirts catering to the copyfighter, a person who fights to uphold the openness and freedom of the cheap hosting websites on the Internet. One is the classic DMCA notice, “The content of this t-shirt has been removed due to a DMCA takedown notice.” The other: the seized tee. It bears fake logos complete with eagles, representative of the logos of different Fed departments, and the slogan “This t-shirt has been seized.” What better way to showcase your disapproval of the government and their censorship practices than with one of these t-shirts?
A Trip Back In Internet History: THREE YEARS AGO
On August 17, 2010 the site featured a story of the Callicebus caquetensis, a newly discovered species of titi monkey living in the Colombian Amazon. The blog post points out that monkey was discovered for the first time in an area off limits “due to a violent insurgence,” according to scientists who discovered the monkey. They also found that there are less than 250 of these monkeys living in the wild thanks to the destruction of their habitat by humans.
A Trip Back In Internet History: FIVE YEARS AGO
On August 17, 2008 a post featured the blurb about Murilee Martin, who visited the Monterey Historic Automobile Races and returned home with gorgeous pictures of vintage automobile emblems and hood ornaments.
A Trip Back In Internet History: SEVEN YEARS AGO
On August 17, 2006, they disclosed that a documentary on Al Franken entitled “God Spoke” would be shown at the Tribeca Film Festival.
A Trip Back In Internet History: TEN YEARS AGO
On August 17, 2003 the issue of “interactive porn” was discussed. At this time, the New York Times had run an article discussing the increasing interest in these types of DVDs. Boing Boing pointed out that at that time, there was a popular DVD set selling for $31 per DVD featuring nine discs in all. These DVDs claimed that if you watched them, it was like having virtual sex with a handful of stars. It's like a “Choose Your Own Adventure” for porn, where the viewer chooses how to respond and what acts to perform with the actress. The viewer also gets to choose the personality of the star: will she be dominant, or submissive? You decide!
It is interesting to note the NYT article discusses the goal of porn companies for the future: hologram technology, bringing the porn star right into your living room. Said the creator and co-owner of Digital Playground, creator of these virtual porn DVDs, “We already shoot our girls against a black background for our interactive DVDs…That way, when we perfect hologram technology, we can cancel out the black background and bring the subject into three-dimensional space. Men will love it. They'll sit in front of their giant-screen TV, turn off the lights and the only thing lit will be the girl.”
It's interesting to look back on the porn industry then, and to see the number of adult hosting sites rising over the years. Today, these adult hosting sites are more popular than DVDs due to the on-demand nature. And with the news released in early 2012 that Japan has invented a technology that creates not only holograms, but holograms you can actually touch.
Isn't it fun to look back in Internet history to see how far we've come?
Photo courtesy of Horia Varlen via Flickr Creative Commons
