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What’s the Internet? (on 1994's Today Show)
kkleiner writes "In a hilarious video segment from January 24th 1994, The Today Show morning anchors Bryant Gumbel and Katie Couric stumble over the identity and jargon of the internet technology that has come to define the past decade. Gumbel is unclear how you pronounce "@", Katie Couric suggests "about", and no one wants to say "dot" when they read ".com". Confusion with lingo aside, The Today Show cast has to ask a crew member to clarify how the internet works. Do you write to it like mail? Is it just in Universities? Does it require a phone line? This was less than two decades ago, and it's a wonderful reminder of how unprepared the mainstream media was for the innovation that was about to sweep the globe. As the crew member says of the internet, "it's getting bigger and bigger all the time." What a delightful understatement."
You could probably have blamed their producers or research people though.. for not giving them the 5 minute education beforehand.
I might point out that the format of these daily TV shows seems to encourage uninformed people to learn with the host(s). We work day jobs so we don't see this anymore but I think what appeals to my grandmother about Regis is that he acts like an average guy just trying to figure stuff out ... and she can identify with that. Note that I said "uninformed" not "stupid." I would posit that the American people would rather embark on a learning adventure than be lectured ... I think this is why Bill Nye (yes, I know he wasn't the original) appealed to me so much as a kid.
I agree I didn't find this very funny, I did not have a computer at the time and spent the majority of my free time reading, bailing hay, playing trombone and walking endless up and down acres of field collecting rocks baseball size or larger. Had you asked me about any of the technologies they addressed here, my answer might have been just as hilarious and even more clueless. Oh well, gotta start somewhere.
I found it cute or quaint at worst. Cute to recall the time when we didn't have this powerful force dictating and providing so much.
My work here is dung.
/. should delete accounts of people who use the word "twitterverse"
-SaNo
Basic everyday activities.
The problem is that some of those things aren't really "basic everyday activities." Most dramatically, it certainly isn't a basic everyday activity for most people to drive a stick shift -- because most people don't have stick shifts. When are you going to drive one? There have only been a couple times ever where I've even really been in a situation in which I might have driven a stick if I knew how. (I'm not speaking from the authority of age here, but I have been driving for over a decade.)
Actually, /. should delete the accounts of people who do nothing but look for somewhere else the article has appeared first then bitch about how Slashdot didn't "scoop" it -- as if that's EVER how Slashdot worked.
Some of us aren't on Facebook, or Twitter, or whatever the fuck else you are using to get news. Thankfully we have Slashdot.
January 1994 actually WAS kind of early to understand the internet. I myself only caught on to it in summer 1993, with Mosaic running on Suns and Macs in the Georgia Tech computer labs. I could rock command-line FTP though.
Yes yes, some of you all had internet access / addresses well before then, and hooray for you. But in Jan 1994 it was still extremely new for average mainstream folks, like people who watch (and host) major network morning news shows.
Give the perma-snark a rest. And you kids get off my lawn!
One simple rule for its versus it's