Slashdot Mirror
Dot-Com Service Memories?
Buster Chan asks: "As the dotcom boom was still going strong in 1998, there was a service called MyTalk, which I used to send/recieve e-mail/voicemail/telephone calls/horoscopes and so forth, for free; it was mostly a unique, ad-driven way to avoid paying a quarter for telephone calls from payphones. Most of the ads were recruitment ads for the U.S. Army. MyTalk was a major tool for my online socialization when I was seventeen. Does anyone else have fond memories of MyTalk, or know of similar services that exist for free nowdays, or does anyone remember using interesting, unique services from the dotcom boom that no longer exist?"
It was a commercial, they were all made up parodies of the whole .com situation. Lots of companies tried selling lots of useless services on the Internet.
I remember DesktopDollars, which was a system where you were paid to have advertisements placed at the top of the desktop. It promised $150 an hour. I made $7 in three months.
I also remember Juno and NetZero providing free internet, the later of which now charges $14.95 a month for dialup.
The World is Yours.
I remember DialPad. I also remember that their POS Java applet did not work well at all. Come to think of it, sound quality SUCKED ASS on a 33.6K, too. I also distinctly remember DialPad bluescreening multiple boxes running Win95 or Win98.
ICQ is still around, I think most Americans have abandoned it but it's still used a lot in Canada and Europe and places AOL hasn't that strong a foothold. Not to say AIM isn't popular in Canada but a lot of people still use ICQ up here.
Groceries! Delivered! To your door! Did everything except put them up for you... *sigh*
Some people are like Slinkies - Not good for anything, but you can't help smiling when you push 'em down the stairs.