Well I Never..

[giraffepoo]

Facebook is good and bad. I've found friends from 30 years ago...but also I've had to block some people, like my x-husband and his creepy new wife who found me and kept sending me messages about how he beats her...so much drama. That's why I only have a fan page for facebook open for my internet friends...don't need anymore stalkers! I'm not on the computer as much...I like hanging out at the book store and buying books...and watching an occasional vid of yours! Barb

[captainfury2007]

Wow, this was cool. I found you through ChristopherMast. Very very cool. I had to sub.

[JimmerSD]

Thanks so much Cap'in! Yeah Chris is a great guy and a good friend! I subbed you a couple months ago. :o)

[canadianstudmuffin]

...I remember life without the Internet...well, sort of. :P

Yep...I chatted on Facebook with my first girlfriend from 1980 (with my wife's knowledge ha ha...)

[JimmerSD]

Funny thing that..xP

[audionautix]

so facebook has some redeeming qualities after all? Is that what you're saying? LOL!!

[JimmerSD]

Well that is FarmTown...

[barryperrins]

Out of all those sites Iv'e found facebook to be one of the best for finding old friends. The reason is, I think FB is used by more mature people like us! than is other sites.

I have found friends from over 20 years ago. The only thing is I have a feeling they never contacted me because they did'nt like me !!

[JimmerSD]

Well, it might have something to do with hygiene..but having never met you in person I couldn't say. ;)

[Blargaldalien]

1001 0011010,

100110111 001011 11 11000 1100

00101 101 0111 00110011 01100\00101100.

100100 100 10010 100 10001101?

[JimmerSD]

1001 001001001001001000010010011110­10101001010010100010!

[Blargaldalien]

10010 you mean.

[denitson777]

Yeah,those were the days..the days of the dial up modem...thanks god for high spped internet :)

oh cool history :)

[JimmerSD]

LOL! Yeah hey but wasn'tit a cool time!?

[itsBABYSMITH]

i remember being SO excited about finding 'newsgroups' back in the early 90's....you're right, things have drastically changed since then. and the progress is only gonna exponentially increase from now on...

i predict we'll be riding fully automated hover crafts, swallowing meals in pill form (and liking it), and chatting with our friends and family telepathically via implanted chips in our brains....probably within the next 2 decades.

[itsBABYSMITH]

....oh, and joan rivers will be the first to live well past 200 years old, due to the advances in reconstructive surgery and alternative medicine.

[JimmerSD]

I think that there's actually a 'Life after People' episode about that.

[JimmerSD]

Sounds great! umm..err.. 2 decades? But what about 2012?

[ElevenColors]

itsBABYSMITH,

Did someone say NNRP? Hell, I remember when alt.sex.fetish.oriental had only discussions.

[artworkslive]

EC...HAHAHA! you make alt.fan.letterman sound so, um, errr, DRY in comparison!

[OhCurt]

History of the web - I love this!

And I hear ya regarding FB. It's a mixed bag of everything from wonderful to downright annoying.

[JimmerSD]

After re-watching your rational for not using FB I have to admit I'm rethinking the whole thing. Do you know if there are any missile silos for sale in Montana?

[benzone50]

Wow Jim, that was interesting hearing your little history of involvement through internet.

Yes facebook, we are all connected now-because of facebook.

[JimmerSD]

Are we not MEN?!

[ElevenColors]

JimmerSD,

We are DEVO.

[JimmerSD]

11colors

Are we not MEN!

[ElevenColors]

D-E-V-O

[obsquatch]

I just saw them play two nights ago. Them some face melting nerds, I tell ya. The funny thing is they had tech problems with the video feed and eventually just ditched the video and showed up in yellow plastic jumpsuits and rocked me like a hurricane, of geek. Yakka yakka!

[JimmerSD]

The older I get the better they were!

[ElevenColors]

Signing up for any social media wotsit using one's real name seems a bit silly. Possibly dangerous.

[JimmerSD]

Yeah, you are right there. But a lot of folks who are over there aren't acquainted with that fundamental principal of online security. Oh and just because they're family doesn't mean they're smart.

[2MuChDeAn]

you have so ;)

i feel the same way about facebook.

that being said, add me :)

[JimmerSD]

Do I know you?

[2MuChDeAn]

does it matter?

i know you.

[realitytc]

We called the phone thing the Jam Line when I was a kid. The first time I ever chatted with someone from another country was 1994 & it was excruciatingly slow on a 14.4 connection. There were minutes of time between our snippets of text but I thought it was the coolest thing I had ever seen. Facebook freaks me out. It is simply the largest most comprehensive database on the planet. I don't like it. I'm on there because people found me anyway.

[JimmerSD]

And average people are standing in line to give FB detailed info about their lives, wants, needs and relations. I don't think FB has taken the Google oath either.

[MidiPunk]

I started out the same way, but wasn't as lucky with friends in the biz. Maxed out my first credit card between GEnie and INN (ImagiNation Network).

Still have t-shirt hanging in garage from a local MajorBBS that allowed four people to play DOOM (and other DOS LAN games later), I went that route instead of AOL.

Name, address, phone, etc., have been in WHOIS database since about '94. Was a little scary back then, but nowadays with online phone books we're all out there.

[JimmerSD]

The community of ubergeeks was pretty small in those days. But I spent more than my share on pay services. Once I left my system up for a to download over telnet and went to sleep. I woke up the next morning with 7 hrs over my monthly limit because the modem hadn't dropped the call when it was supposed too. Big time panic attack!

I even tried to run my own BBS for a while. I don't even think I have an old AOL install disk left as a souvenir ;)

[KimOsh72]

Yea, about 5 years ago, an old friend of mine from high school contacted me on myspace. Eventually, I closed my myspace account. If I wanted to keep in touch with certain people...I would have done so out of high school. It creeped me out.

My real name isn't on the internet any longer and I'm careful about what information I give.

I've never had a facebook account. Interesting.

[JimmerSD]

Can't say I blame you there. More and more the line between real world and online is blurring. I had signed up for FB and promptly forgot about it ;p

[AngloBaptist]

Wow...Yeah. I've been experiencing similar things on The Facebook.

[JimmerSD]

I hear that a lot. I think that part of FB success is that it is being adopted by the generation that was before mine. At 50 I am on the raggedy edge of the early adopters, people who are older than that typically use new technology out of necessity.

[AngloBaptist]

In '88 to '92 I was all over the MUDs. Otherwise I was just in amazement of some friends who were plugged in to the ethernets. It was in '94 that I got an e-mail account and started venturing out. In 2000/01 I started a blog and from there it's only gotten worse. I'm in too many places now.

[CrappyCartoons]

Ok - thanks for the heads up. I will continue to stay off of facebook.

[JimmerSD]

Glad I could help ;)

[ThOverdrive]

Question because I am curious. Since you are such an internet pioneer....what was the first emoticon (eg. T_T :) =^_^=) you used? and what was the first internet abbreviation (eg. lol, gtg, brb) you remember seeing?

[JimmerSD]

Interesting question. When I began posting I would use the actual words to express what we do with emoticons now (smile) **Wink** {Stupid Look}

I think the first E-con I remember seeing was the winky ;) I looked at it and it never dawned on me what it was.. at first. I'm slow like that.

[ThOverdrive]

oh wow, back in the day on the net people didn't even abbreviate their emoticons. Thank you for answering. ^_^

[battim]

internets is a small place. nostalgic story.

[JimmerSD]

Getting smaller every day. Where will we go to hide when everyone is on the internets?

[rozeboosje]

I really enjoyed this vid. Probably because I have similar experiences growing into the Internet age. Yeah, Facebook seem to have succeeded where many very similar alternatives have failed. Weird.

[JimmerSD]

Thanks Pino. I think the success of FB might be because is continues to be free. When Classmates tried to charge for access to the same info I told them to take a hike!

[jenzatron]

Hey Jim :)

It is pretty crazy. I found my first ever kiss on facebook. I was 5 years old when it happened and I hadn't seen him in over 20 years.

How weird is that? :)

[JimmerSD]

Hi Jen!

You remember being 5? Those brain cells died a long time ago ;)

Come to think of it... I had my first kiss around the same time..damned if I can remember her name though.