My Technology Timeline

As someone who has been on the Internet for over 30 years (I was online before there was a World Wide Web and the graphical interface so ubiquitous to the online experience now), this is a really cool stroll down memory lane, as well as a fantastic visualization of the Big Dogs of Internet companies and how they have changed over time.

Which onramp did you use to get on the information highway and when? I had my first dial-up account in the early 90’s, and was checking e-mail through Unix-based systems like Pine and ELM. My route into IT was unexpected (and for some hilarious), but it was a part of roughly two decades of my professional life to some degree.

I remember the arrival of Yahoo! and providing internal training to staff at the corporate IT training company I joined in the mid-90’s, teaching them about the rapidly shifting Internet landscape as Yahoo! and other companies began to gain on American Online (AOL) in terms of providing portals or gateways to online web sites and destinations. Being able to see how companies arrived, jockeyed for position, enjoyed their moment in the sun, and then disappeared is fascinating. Good to find useful and fun things on the Internet instead of just fear-mongering and mis/dis-information!