8 ms·

In case there are people here who are really to young to remember this, consider the context: Although 2001 doesn't seem too long ago, most people didn't hav

In case there are people here who are really to young to remember this, consider the context: Although 2001 doesn't seem too long ago, most people didn't have cell phones still, and those that did were signor feature phones. Social media didn't really exist yet, at least not as we understand it today. Many people had internet speeds that would be unusable today, so most information still came through the TV.

samwillis 4y ago
I was 15, everyone at school (in the uk) had phones. I remember waiting to be collected from school and reading the latest updates from the BBC WAP website on my Trium Mars phone - that’s a technology that’s long dead.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- zahllos 4y ago
  At your school perhaps. I was slightly younger than you when this happened. I was home from school early for reasons I don't remember, and watched everything unfold on TV (I do remember that part). I don't remember if I got my first phone before or after this - I think maybe after, but I am honestly very unsure. I can tell you it was a 2nd hand 3310. Not everyone in school had one, because not everyone could afford it. Some people's parents didn't have them; most people's grandparents didn't. Landlines reigned supreme, and MSN whenever that arrived (still had a few friends without internet then, I was on dialup, a few people got broadband the year after). I don't remember anyone using WAP really ever^. I don't really remember when mobile internet actually took off seriously but I remember a friend posting to facebook and getting updates via SMS in 2008/2009. Cool that you did use WAP, but you were likely a minority and that's nothing compared to the ubiquity of LTE connections of today. ^One of my friend's Dads worked for Vodafone at the time. Their HQ was commutable from where we lived. I discussed C++ with him a lot. I still don't remember anyone using WAP and they had staff discount, so your 12p/10p SMS was 2p for them. I only knew what WAP was because I read about it in PC Pro.
  - samwillis 4y ago
    Yes, I was a massive geek, I suspect I was the only kid using WAP at school… I think we had gone from almost no one having phones to the majority of the year having them in the space of that year. A lot of hand me downs from parents, and a fair bit of being envious of kids with Nokias.
spijdar 4y ago
At the risk of making some people feel old, to me (as a 25 y/old), 2001 feels very long ago, and conjures memories of cassettes and big CRTs. It's one of my few memories from that far back, actually. The television news, I remember seeing the attacks. Mom was folding laundry, I recall. I wonder sometimes if it's a "fictitious memory", but I think it's real. Interesting how inverted things are, not even my parents watch TV much anymore, now the normal is getting notifications from whatever social media app.
- willismichael 4y ago
  > "fictitious memory" I have a memory of attending a preschool in somebody's house in 1986, and one day the teacher's son ran into the room saying that the space shuttle Challenger had exploded. The memory is so vivid, but I have no idea if it is accurate at all.
- dylan604 4y ago
  >Interesting how inverted things are, But that's not quite right though. I think I get the sentiment, but it's not that people in 2001 weren't using socials as much as TV for news because of popularity. It was because they didn't exist yet. That's like saying that in 2001 the ratio of smart phone users to dumb phone/land line users were inverted compared to today, but yet smart phones weren't a thing then so it's not a good inversion comparison.
  - 111111101101 4y ago
    Social media existed back then it just wasn't called that. It was mainly done over email, IRC and instant messaging software.
    - dylan604 4y ago
      I don't really think those things you just listed are truly part of the every day accepted definition of social media.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
implements 4y ago
I don't recall personal social media then (Myspace was 2003) - but there were large global talk boards with tens of thousands of users: https://www.theguardian.com/help/insideguardian/2011/feb/28/guardian-unlimited-talkboards https://www.theguardian.com/help/insideguardian/2011/feb/28/... (closure notice)
- samwillis 4y ago
  LiveJournal was quite large by then I believe, that along with the real-time messaging apps ICQ/AOL/MSN were beginning to become mainstream. I think I can remember reading about Habbo Hotel too around then.
protomyth 4y ago
Probably due to load, most of the big news sites wouldn't load. I ended up going to BBC.com to find out how bad it was. I heard about it from a very confused DJ on a radio station on my way to work.
green-salt 4y ago
AOL Instant Messenger was how I was able to contact a friend in NY at the time.
Merad 4y ago
> In case there are people here who are really to young to remember this I'd guess there's quite a few of them here. Most current college age kids hadn't been born yet. College seniors were newborns. Those under age 30 probably remember it, but they were most likely too young to really understand what was going on at the time.
samatman 4y ago
It didn't matter if you did have a cellphone, the network was completely overloaded all day, getting a call through was unlikely. I remember CNN.com being down for the longest time. I didn't have a television or radio so I ended up following along on the BBC website, which didn't crash. Kudos to the engineers behind that one.
- jen20 4y ago
  As I recall, bbc.com was built with WebObjects and a heavy layer of static geneation/caching in front of it at that time, and probably served from Solaris or FreeBSD. This seems like the kind of forum where someone would know with certainty however!
- mjhagen 4y ago
  Didn't CNN.com switch to a text only mode?
  - techdragon 4y ago
    It did. I don’t remember for how long though. But it went text only to keep up with the demand once they had time to make changes.
jeffbee 4y ago
Most households in the U.S. already had mobile phones by 2001. Market penetration was even higher in Europe. You're right about the smartphone thing, since they didn't really exist until 2002. In 2001 BlackBerry, the most popular smart-thing with its own mobile radio but no phone, had fewer than 200k subscribers world-wide.
hnbad 4y ago
This submission actually unlocked a memory: I wasn't a regular Fark user but because social media and live blogs on news sites weren't a thing yet and TV coverage was lagging behind, I actually followed the Fark thread because it was the closest thing you'd get to a live updated news feed. The more recent equivalent would be following Twitter hashtags during terrorist attacks (until they became unusable with people actively spreading disinformation).

samwillis 4y ago

I was 15, everyone at school (in the uk) had phones. I remember waiting to be collected from school and reading the latest updates from the BBC WAP website on my Trium Mars phone - that’s a technology that’s long dead.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
zahllos 4y ago
At your school perhaps. I was slightly younger than you when this happened. I was home from school early for reasons I don't remember, and watched everything unfold on TV (I do remember that part). I don't remember if I got my first phone before or after this - I think maybe after, but I am honestly very unsure. I can tell you it was a 2nd hand 3310. Not everyone in school had one, because not everyone could afford it. Some people's parents didn't have them; most people's grandparents didn't. Landlines reigned supreme, and MSN whenever that arrived (still had a few friends without internet then, I was on dialup, a few people got broadband the year after). I don't remember anyone using WAP really ever^. I don't really remember when mobile internet actually took off seriously but I remember a friend posting to facebook and getting updates via SMS in 2008/2009. Cool that you did use WAP, but you were likely a minority and that's nothing compared to the ubiquity of LTE connections of today. ^One of my friend's Dads worked for Vodafone at the time. Their HQ was commutable from where we lived. I discussed C++ with him a lot. I still don't remember anyone using WAP and they had staff discount, so your 12p/10p SMS was 2p for them. I only knew what WAP was because I read about it in PC Pro.
- samwillis 4y ago
  Yes, I was a massive geek, I suspect I was the only kid using WAP at school… I think we had gone from almost no one having phones to the majority of the year having them in the space of that year. A lot of hand me downs from parents, and a fair bit of being envious of kids with Nokias.

spijdar 4y ago

At the risk of making some people feel old, to me (as a 25 y/old), 2001 feels very long ago, and conjures memories of cassettes and big CRTs. It's one of my few memories from that far back, actually. The television news, I remember seeing the attacks. Mom was folding laundry, I recall. I wonder sometimes if it's a "fictitious memory", but I think it's real. Interesting how inverted things are, not even my parents watch TV much anymore, now the normal is getting notifications from whatever social media app.

willismichael 4y ago
> "fictitious memory" I have a memory of attending a preschool in somebody's house in 1986, and one day the teacher's son ran into the room saying that the space shuttle Challenger had exploded. The memory is so vivid, but I have no idea if it is accurate at all.
dylan604 4y ago
>Interesting how inverted things are, But that's not quite right though. I think I get the sentiment, but it's not that people in 2001 weren't using socials as much as TV for news because of popularity. It was because they didn't exist yet. That's like saying that in 2001 the ratio of smart phone users to dumb phone/land line users were inverted compared to today, but yet smart phones weren't a thing then so it's not a good inversion comparison.
- 111111101101 4y ago
  Social media existed back then it just wasn't called that. It was mainly done over email, IRC and instant messaging software.
  - dylan604 4y ago
    I don't really think those things you just listed are truly part of the every day accepted definition of social media.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]

implements 4y ago

I don't recall personal social media then (Myspace was 2003) - but there were large global talk boards with tens of thousands of users: https://www.theguardian.com/help/insideguardian/2011/feb/28/guardian-unlimited-talkboards https://www.theguardian.com/help/insideguardian/2011/feb/28/... (closure notice)

samwillis 4y ago
LiveJournal was quite large by then I believe, that along with the real-time messaging apps ICQ/AOL/MSN were beginning to become mainstream. I think I can remember reading about Habbo Hotel too around then.

protomyth 4y ago

Probably due to load, most of the big news sites wouldn't load. I ended up going to BBC.com to find out how bad it was. I heard about it from a very confused DJ on a radio station on my way to work.

green-salt 4y ago

AOL Instant Messenger was how I was able to contact a friend in NY at the time.

Merad 4y ago

> In case there are people here who are really to young to remember this I'd guess there's quite a few of them here. Most current college age kids hadn't been born yet. College seniors were newborns. Those under age 30 probably remember it, but they were most likely too young to really understand what was going on at the time.

samatman 4y ago

It didn't matter if you did have a cellphone, the network was completely overloaded all day, getting a call through was unlikely. I remember CNN.com being down for the longest time. I didn't have a television or radio so I ended up following along on the BBC website, which didn't crash. Kudos to the engineers behind that one.

jen20 4y ago
As I recall, bbc.com was built with WebObjects and a heavy layer of static geneation/caching in front of it at that time, and probably served from Solaris or FreeBSD. This seems like the kind of forum where someone would know with certainty however!
mjhagen 4y ago
Didn't CNN.com switch to a text only mode?
- techdragon 4y ago
  It did. I don’t remember for how long though. But it went text only to keep up with the demand once they had time to make changes.

jeffbee 4y ago

Most households in the U.S. already had mobile phones by 2001. Market penetration was even higher in Europe. You're right about the smartphone thing, since they didn't really exist until 2002. In 2001 BlackBerry, the most popular smart-thing with its own mobile radio but no phone, had fewer than 200k subscribers world-wide.

hnbad 4y ago

This submission actually unlocked a memory: I wasn't a regular Fark user but because social media and live blogs on news sites weren't a thing yet and TV coverage was lagging behind, I actually followed the Fark thread because it was the closest thing you'd get to a live updated news feed. The more recent equivalent would be following Twitter hashtags during terrorist attacks (until they became unusable with people actively spreading disinformation).