March 2009

(This is chapter seven of my ongoing memoir of the Internet industry.)

The World Wide Web was a social network from its earliest days, but it wasn't much like the social networks of today. It was a small world, for one thing, and everybody in it had some degree of technical skill. Maybe that's one reason the earliest creatures to populate this society tended to be such strange specimens, and also why our friendships often had an obsessive edge.

Soon after launching Literary Kicks in the summer of 1994 I got an email from Malcolm Humes, webmaster of the Brian Eno homepage, who wanted to collaborate with me on a new site about William S. Burroughs. I didn't want to collaborate, but I found that Mal and I had an awful lot to talk about. We began emailing several times a day, and it meant a lot to me to be able to compare notes with another creative techie soul.

(This is chapter eight of my ongoing memoir of the internet industry.)

On October 28, 1994, Chip Bayers of Wired Magazine posted on Usenet about an ambitious new website called HotWired.com:

HotWired is new thinking for a new medium. We call it a cyberstation, a suite of vertical content streams about the Digital Revolution and the Second Renaissance with an integrated community space. While HotWired is currently bound by technological limitations that restrict bandwidth, it represents the genetic blueprint that will evolve into the overarching media environment of the next century.

Further down, Bayers' post also said this:

HotWired is free to members. HotWired's revenue model is similar to broadcast media - content supported by sponsors. HotWired's sponsors are some of the bluest chip advertisers in America, including IBM, AT&T, Volvo, Sprint, MCI, Zima (Coors), Internet Shopping Network (Home Shopping Network), Club Med, etc.

I didn't know what to think of all the hype, or of the "tribal" design aesthetic. But I appreciated that HotWired bothered to have a design aesthetic, since most websites still featured black Times New Roman text against a pale gray background. I registered to become a "member" (a new concept at the time), but didn't find much to do with my membership. There were discussion groups, but they felt meager and artificial compared to Usenet.

The most unique thing about HotWired was not its look or its content but its business focus. Revenue model? Sponsors? Now this was something new. I didn't feel much confidence that HotWired would be able to pull this off, but it was the most ambitious concept I'd seen on the web so far, and I couldn't help wanting to quit my job and work for them immediately.

(This is chapter nine of my ongoing memoir of the Internet industry.)

I spent a few weekends during the late winter and early spring of 1995 running around the borough of Queens, New York taking pictures, most often with my three kids in tow. Daniel and Elizabeth loved to go on random car adventures, little Abigail got strapped into the car seat and had no choice, and we usually ended up some place cool like the Lemon Ice King of Corona or the famous "Coming To America" Wendy's on Queens Boulevard by the end of the night. I didn't know exactly what I was taking pictures for, but I had some vague idea about exploring the concept of the Internet as a virtual city by writing online about my real city, figuring this would somehow make sense to readers. Or else I just enjoyed driving aimlessly around Queens with my kids and getting lemon ices. I'm not sure exactly which it was.

Lawrence Ferlinghetti, poet, global activist and indie publisher extraordinaire, turns 90 years old today. Here's his Litkicks biography page, and here's the poem we've been running on this site for many years:

       The pennycandystore beyond the El
       is where I first
                       fell in love
                              with unreality
       Jellybeans glowed in the semi-gloom
       of that september afternoon
       A cat upon the counter moved among
                                 the licorice sticks
                      and tootsie rolls
              and Oh Boy Gum

       Outside the leaves were falling as they died

       A wind had blown away the sun

       A girl ran in
       Her hair was rainy
       Her breasts were breathless in the little room

       Outside the leaves were falling
                            and they cried
                                         Too soon!  too soon!

The great folksinger Pete Seeger will also turn 90 on May 3, and New York City will celebrate him in big style on this date at Madison Square Garden featuring performers like Bruce Springsteen, Eddie Vedder, Arlo Guthrie, Dave Matthews and John Cougar Mellencamp. That's going to be some hootenanny birthday party. Pete Seeger and Lawrence Ferlinghetti are two American sages, feisty, stubborn and deeply politically engaged. What blacklisted Communist Pete Seeger and embattled Howl publisher Lawrence Ferlinghetti had in common is that they both loved to fight for their causes. They both wore out their competition.