On Silicon Graphics with John McCrea (Pt. 1)
Summary: John McCrea is a Zelig-like personality who pops up in so many of the narratives we’ve already covered: Apple. Netscape. Doing battle with Microsoft. …
Most Recent Podcasts
The Epic Fail of Digg V.4 With Will Larson
Summary: This story has gone down in Silicon Valley lore as the ultimate cautionary tale. Digg was the earliest high flying startup in early social …
Bringing the NYTimes and MSNBC Online With Lisa Napoli
Summary: Lisa Napoli got a job straight out of college at CNN in its earliest days, which is a crazy startup story in it’s own …
Netscape’s Rosanne Siino
Summary: Rosanne Siino has been on my list to talk to from day one of this podcast. As you know, I started by reaching out …
How Politics Came To The Web With Karl Mattson
Today we’re going to go back to take a look at early journalism on the web. Karl Mattson helped launched one of the first political …
Claude Shannon, Father of Information Theory
Summary: Claude Shannon was a mathematician, electrical engineer, and cryptographer known as “the father of information theory.” In the pantheon of cool people who made …
The Godfather of Streaming Music, Robert Reid
Summary: Robert Reid, the founder of Rhapsody, can be considered the Godfather (founding father?) of the streaming music reality we now live in. But guess what? …
Kottke.org’s Jason Kottke, @jkottke
Summary: Jason Kottke, of kottke.org fame, was one of the early bloggers, one of the first bloggers to go pro, and one of the few …
The History of Java with Todd Sundsted
Summary: People have been yelling at me for years that I’ve not covered more technical aspects of the web’s history, especially things like Java. Specifically …
NYTimes Technology Columnist Farhad Manjoo
Summary: Today, a man who needs no introduction: New York Times Technology Columnist Farhad Manjoo. This episode was recorded about two months or so ago, …
Amazon, Hulu and Oculus with Eugene Wei
Summary: No joke, this is one of my favorite episodes we’ve ever done. Eugene Wei was an early employee at Hulu, so we get some …
Claire L. Evans, Author of Broad Band- The Untold Story of the Women Who Made the Internet
Summary: Claire Evans is the author of the new book: Broad Band The Untold Story of the Women Who Made the Internet. This is the …
The History of Online Video with JibJab’s Gregg Spiridellis
Summary: Gregg Spiridellis has been making things go viral on the web since before the term VIRAL was even a thing. His company, JibJab has …
Venrock’s David Pakman on Apple’s Music Group, N2K, eMusic and Dollar Shave Club
Summary: David Pakman is a well respected venture capitalist at Venrock, but also a lifelong musician and music fan. Earlier in his career he played …
Jeff Bussgang on Open Market and Early eCommerce
Summary: It gets my goat that these days, the history of ecommerce begins and ends with Amazon. There were so many companies and big ideas …
The Forgotten Story of PLATO, with Brian Dear
Summary: Plato was an online and interactive learning computer system developed in the 1960s at the University of Illinois. But in the early 1970s, Plato …
Bob Stein of Voyager and The Criterion Collection
Summary: Bob Stein was the founder of Voyager, publisher of the first consumer CDROM titles, and, far and away the leader of the CDROM industry …
Rob Malda (@cmdrtaco) on SlashDot and Social Media
Summary: You might know him as Rob Malda, or you might know him as CmdrTaco, but he was the founder of the great geek social …
Dave Winer on The Open Web, Blogging, Podcasting and More
Summary: Dave Winer has been called the godfather of a lot of things. The godfather of blogging. The Godfather of Podcasting. One of the key …
Giphy with Nicole LaPorte
Summary: Nicole Laporte has a cover story in Fast Company magazine this month about Giphy, potentially the next big story in online advertising and marketing, …
Blog Posts
20 Years On: Why Netscape’s IPO Was the “Big Bang” of the Internet Era
This Sunday, August 9th, marks the 20th anniversary of perhaps the seminal moment in modern tech history. On August 9th, 1995, Netscape Communications Corporation went …
How Teens Spent Time On The Web In 1999
More data goodness from my deep dives into The Industry Standard’s hard copy archives. In 1999, Jupiter Communications estimated there were only about 8 million …
Nostalgia For Dot-Com Era Valuations?
Was in the library today doing research for upcoming episodes. Was going through the entire print run of Industry Standard magazine, page by page. Stumbled …
Is There A Tool That Triggers A Phone Alert Via RSS?
I’m waiting feverishly for the latest Ask the Maester column to go live on Grantland. Sooo… so many questions about that last episode and the …
What Was The First Item Ever Ordered On Amazon?
John Wainwright Was Amazon’s First Ever Customer Amazon.com was actually founded all the way back in the summer of 1994. But unlike other dotcom-era startups …
On the 20th Anniversary – The History of Yahoo’s Founding
Yahoo was officially incorporated on March 2nd, 1995. This is a partial transcript of several episodes of the Internet History Podcast, including an oral history …
Amazon’s Office Layout Circa 1996?
Here’s a fun little nugget. It’s from Erica Jorgensen, who was the Health Books editor at Amazon. This is a neat tie-in to recent …
Requiem For Radio Shack
So, RadioShack is dead, huh? You might say, who cares? Probably little better (different?) than a Sprint store anyway, right? Before there were hackers who …
The Change In Marketshare For Game Platforms Going Back To 1971
No real reason to post this. Just thought it was cool. Click to enlarge. Found it here.
End of Year Checkin With iTunes
On yesterdays ep. I thanked you for keeping us high in the iTunes lists. But I realized I hadn’t actually checked on that in a …