Cybercultural chronicles internet history and its cultural impact, from the pre-web era to the dot-com boom, Web 2.0, and beyond. Written by pioneering tech blogger Richard MacManus.
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Second Life and the Beginnings of the Metaverse in 1999
After seeing the movie 'The Matrix', Philip Rosedale started a dot-com company and attempted to build a full-body virtual reality rig. He soon pivoted to creating a virtual world on the Web.
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David Bowie’s 1999 Gaming Adventure and Virtual Album
Continuing his exploration of virtual personas, in 1999 David Bowie played two 3D characters in a game called 'Omikron: The Nomad Soul'. The songs he contributed were later added to his album, Hours.
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From BowieWorld to Facebook: How Online Identity Evolved
Exploring different personas on the web was a widespread trend in the late-1990s. Later, Facebook would neuter online identity, but in 1999 you could invent virtual characters on sites like BowieWorld.
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Google in 1999: Search Engines Escape the Portal Matrix
Like Morpheus in The Matrix, Google gave web users a stark choice in 1999: take the red pill and experience a new world of search quality, or choose the blue pill and stick with the bloated world of portal search.
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Seasons: A Fine Way To Structure a Website or Blog in 2025
Borrowing a concept from podcasting, I'm introducing 'seasons' of content on Cybercultural. From season 1 in 2019, when I began this as a newsletter, to the current season 4 focused on dot-com.
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What the Internet Was Like in 1998
It's 1998, the middle of the dot-com boom. Portals are advertising on TV, web developers are fighting browser companies, Microsoft and Amazon are gaining power, and Netscape is going open source.
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Search Engines in 1998, Before Google Takes the Spotlight
Google makes the transition from Stanford project to company over 1998, but it is portals like Yahoo! and portal-wannabes like AltaVista that feature in Danny Sullivan's Search Engine Watch that year.
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1998: How Amazon Conquered Online CD Retailers Like CDnow
At the start of 1998, CDnow and Music Boulevard were the leading online CD shops. Then in June, Amazon branched out from books and began to sell music on its fast growing e-commerce website.
To explore Cybercultural's archive of internet history articles, you can browse by internet era:
- Pre-web (1960s-80s)
- Dot-com (1990-2003)
- Web 2.0 (2004-2012)
- Enshittocene (2013-2021)
You can also read yearly reviews or search for a topic of interest.