Jay Hoffmann
Why You’d Click on ChickClick
When two sisters hit the web with their new idea, it was unlike anything anyone had seen. That one site, ChickClick, inspired so many more and crafted a foundational network of the early web. Continue reading
Bringing the Laughter, Week after Week
The comedy web series was one of the more interesting and influential adaptions of the web medium. It reversed the principles of traditional entertainment to create videos that were more approachable. Continue reading
The Browser Engine That Could
From a browser engine that started as the lesser known option used in an obscure browser to one that would take hold over the entire browser market. Continue reading
Surfing Through the Digital Airwaves: A History of Internet Radio
Internet Radio has been attempted so many times in the history of the web that it’s hard to keep track. With each time came a new innovation, and in most cases, a new way to fail. Continue reading
Before the Wars, Browsers Were Everywhere
Before browsers were truly cross-platform, there was a time when each operating system had their browser of choice, and it was tailored to the needs of those users. Continue reading
Let’s Talk About Elections on the Web
The politics of campaigns have been massively influenced by the tonal shift of the web, and they will likely never be the same. Continue reading
The Linguist and the Programmer
A history of Perl, Python, and the websites that rely on them. Continue reading
The First Website in the United States Was Made for Physicists
Tim Berners-Lee has said, on multiple occasions, the the first website in the US was one of the major reasons the web took off. But what did it do and why was it so important? Continue reading
The Web and the Webbys Grew Together
The Webby Awards was founded way back when no one knew if the web would take off. When we take a look at the Webbys, we see the web’s history. Continue reading
Sorry Computer, You’re Not a Teapot
You are reading this somewhere. On your laptop or on your phone or in your email or RSS reader. If you’re reading this on the web, then this page was delivered from my server to you via a protocol called HTTP. There’s all sorts of fascinating things I can say about HTTP, but the important… Continue reading
The 10-Day Programming Language (Is Kind of a Myth)
In 1995, Netscape Navigator was enjoying a meteoric rise to the top of the browser market. They had only released the first version of their browser a year prior, but already it was a crowd favorite and was bolstering the growing popularity of the web. But employees at Netscape were constantly looking over their shoulder, knowing full… Continue reading
A Love Letter to Net.Art
In an interview for her book Internet Art in 2004, writer Rachel Greene had this to say about why she felt the subject of her book was so important: I refuse to let commercial interests dominate the history and perception of the net because I think they would exclude the most important and dynamic internal content… Continue reading