An Accidental Internet Historian

This is a story that I tell people over and over when I meet them – so I figured I would make a blog post so I could have it written down somewhere.

I am an accidental Internet historian. It all started in 1995-1999 I hosted a Cable television program with my friend Rich Wiggins that was a talk show about the Internet that ended up with three names over time as the cable TV companies bought one another over that period. Here is a YouTube of those (3) shows:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLlRFEj9H3Oj5Dlcu6P92S5dpmb3ihr7QW

This led to me having lots of cool early Internet video and for a number of years I wrote a column called Computing Conversations in IEEE Computer Magazine that wrote a short print article with an associated video interview. Here is a Youtube Channel of that work:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL4660FB7F523B1770

You can see my old material and new interviews since 2012 interwoven. I also attach a couple of articles to give you a sample. We even made an NPR-style audio interview for each of the columns:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8jysBmy5Bec

Then in 2012, I re-did all this material in the form of a Coursera class titled Internet History, Technology, and Security – that is how Niel and I crossed paths. Here is the course and a Youtube channel of the lectures and media:

https://www.coursera.org/learn/insidetheinternet

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLlRFEj9H3Oj6-srSAgLb-ZGVNGlo3v14X

I even turned this all into a textbook on the basics of the Internet that I wrote for a Khan Academy high school course course on TCP/IP. I finished the book but never built the Khan Academy course.

http://www.net-intro.com/

The latest activity was a live Teach Out – a one week open learning learning activity that I did with Doug Van Houweling called “Internet and You”

https://www.coursera.org/learn/teach-out-internet-and-you

This is a story that will keep going as long as I find new folks to interview and add to this collection – I hope folks enjoy this material.