new internet

It's interesting to see how many people put "Twitter refugee" or something similar in their Bsky bios. Have people done that before when migrating to new platforms? I don't recall seeing "Friendster refugee" or "MySpace refugee" on newer platforms in the 00s.

stumbles across a pile of ash, a couple of tree stumps, and half-eaten packet of marshmallows (carefully sealed)

something awesome happened here

Also, much like a small homestead on a hundred acres, websites were closed ecosystems and isolated. There were no social networks or marketplace platforms to tap as a firehose channel for building an audience, and there was no real mechanism for ‘going viral’.

You had to grow your traffic the old fashioned way – by asking your digital neighbors for... See more

About this Class #

There are two meanings of internet:

• the infrastructure that connects computing devices,


• or the ecosystem of applications built on that infrastructure.

When the average person says “internet” they usually refer to the second definition. This class, on the other hand, explores the first.