Thursday, March 26, 2009

Video and the Net, Web 1994. The Guardian.A decade before youtube

On viewmagazine.tv -The Newspapers and the Net circa 1994.

It's difficult to fathom. Video and the web 1994.

It's the year of Friends, Celine Dion's The Power of Love, and an advert which had bizarrely cross over value, which ad people call "overlook". Remember "Hello Boys, Wonderbra".

So in 1994, the web had just been conceived, Marc Andreesen cracks a browser code, Mosaic. At an interview for my new job, the managing director asks me if I know anything about the Internet.

I say yes, blagging it a bit. I'd worked on a gas-model flow programme in 1987 for the Net, but the web is different. However I soon have an account with compuserve and my first graphic design tool, Corel Draw.

1994. Fifteen years ago, a generation in itself. Video on the web was being trialled. Cybercafe off Charlotte street was one of the venues.

At the station, I Videojo a piece on the new chip thieves. there is a growing trend in thefts of memory cards and hard drives, particularly if your card is top of the range e.g. 112mb.

My colleague however catches the zeitgeist. What influence will the web have on the newspapers, such as The Sunday Times, The Telegraph and The Guardian.

It's worth a visit to see for the social history of the web and:
1. what the newspapers said
2. videojournalism in 1994