You see the featured image?
You know what that means!!!!
If you said “I have no idea!” then, well…who are you?
It’s Thursday, which means two things: the end of the week, and a “new” old commercial.
You can’t tell me you’re not excited about the former, moreso than you are of the latter.
Admit it!
Remember the early 2000s? Of course you do! Did you have an internet connection, complete with 56K modem? What service provider did you use?
In 1997, my family got our first taste of the internet in the home, with a 56K modem and internet service through Netscape/Bell Atlantic. A year later, we moved up in the world by jumping on the bandwagon of internet service providers, steered by this guy…
You always awaited his arrival in the third box, but you knew when he got there, the world was about to unfold.
Until the modem disconnected. Because someone picked up the phone.
Did that ever happen to you? Were you the reason it happened, because that has happened to me…and I’ve been the reason it happened.
Anyway, you’ve probably already guessed that this week’s theme involves the internets in the early 2000s. And boy, has it come a long way. I never knew back in 2000 that almost 20 years later, the internet would be insanely fast, the source of impulse purchases, and not involve the dial tone of anticipation.
But, in 2000, I had America Online, the running man was my ticket to the internets, and well, I had mail. I didn’t have YouTube, a blog, or my social media accounts, but I had mail. And an instant messenger. And a buddy list.
Enter 2000’s version of American Online, before it was AOL…
6.0, baby!
Welcome!
Emojis, before they became some kind of big deal…and a crappy movie.
Your friends all tried for the best screen names!
Does this all make you nostalgic? Well, good!
Click play and relive it!
American Online (or Aol., as it is stylized now), still exists as a division of Verizon Communications. After a rapid rise in popularity during the earliest years of home internet service providers, they hit a quick decline as broadband became a thing.
But in 2000, all the rage!
I don’t miss slow/responsive/frequently disconnecting internet, but commercials like this are so much fun. It is so nice to see how far the internet has come.
*cough*Cat pictures and memes
Anyway, that does it for today’s trip back in time to the glorious past of the internets. Tomorrow, another trip back, and another Internet Service Provider.
In the words of America Online…goodbye!
Have a great Throwback Thursday!
Several years ago, I also had America Online. I had it for a few years. I had a dial-up modem. Sadly, while I was using it on my computer, we weren’t able to make calls on our home phone.
Since the Spring of 2009, I have been able to use high-speed Internet … and now we can make phone calls on our home phone while I use the Internet on my computer.
This blog post is fascinating! I used America Online for a few years whenever I was younger.
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I had Aol from 1998 until 2005, when we switched to Comcast’ s high speed internet. My parents still have that, as do my fiancee and I.
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I started using Comcast’s High Speed Internet in 2009. I used AOL in the 2000s. Before that, I had Web TV.
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Web TV, now that takes me back! I never had it, but I remember seeing commercials for it!
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