Someone on my team was recently complaining about the functionality of LinkedIn. As we discussed it, I was reminded of the early days of my recruiting career…back before LinkedIn, back before cell phones and digital maps…heck, back before the Internet! OK, who’s with me and remembers when CAR PHONES first came out? They were the size of bricks – but oh so cool. Remember the little antenna you had to unscrew before you went through the car wash? Bonus points if you remember using MAPSCO’s! Fax machines and that flimsy paper?
I can remember that whenever I traveled, I would sneak one of the phone books in the hotel room for that city into my suitcase. THAT was how you recruited in another city. Yes. The phone book. Do they even make phone books anymore? If you wanted to find mortgage lenders in any city, the phone book was your Bible. Obtaining names of managers and executive leadership required pure creativity with the poor receptionist who answered the phone when you called.
A Game Changing Era
Before the internet began gaining popularity in the early to mid 90’s, a lot of people thought it was a total scam or didn’t understand it. A mouse? Huh? In 1989, Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web and we would never be the same. Here are some additional game changing events from that era:
- 1993: Mosaic, a user friendly web browser, is released
- By 1996: there were approximately 45 million people using the internet. By 1999, that number increased to 150 million. More than half of them were from the United States.
- Late 90’s: Commercial internet providers like AOL become popular (remember the dial up sound when you connected?)
- 2000: 407 million Internet users in 218 of the 246 countries in the world
- 2002: 600-800 million Internet users
In comparison between other media and communication tools? It took Television 13 years to achieve 50 million users. It took Radio 38 years, compared to four years for the internet.
Al Gore and Urban Legend:
In widely reported urban legends, it is said that Al Gore took credit for “inventing the internet.” Here is where that came from. In a March 1999 interview with CNN’s Wolf Blitzer, Gore discussed the possibility of running for President in the 2000 election. In response to a question posed by Blitzer about what he brought to the Party, Gore responded in part, “During my service in the US Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet. I took the initiative in moving forward a whole range of initiatives that have proven to be important to our country’s economic growth and environmental protection, improvements in our educational system.”
Oh, Al. After this statement, Gore became the subject of controversy and ridicule. His statement, “I took the initiative in creating the Internet” was widely quoted out of context. It was often misquoted by comedians and late night personalities who framed this statement as a claim that Gore believed he had personally invented the Internet. Jim Wilkinson, who at the time was working as Congressman Dick Army’s spokesman, also helped sell the idea that Gore claimed to have invented the Internet.
In a speech to the American Political Science Association, Newt Gingrich, the former Republican Speaker of the House, stated, “In all fairness, it is something Gore had worked on for a long time. Gore is not the Father of the Internet. But in all fairness, he is the person who, in the Congress, most systematically worked to make sure that we got to an Internet. We were both a part of a “futures group” and the world we had talked about having in the 80’s began to actually happen.” Unfortunately for Al Gore, the ill fated statement made back in 1999 stuck with him for the duration of his political career.
In summary, the next time you want to throw your cell phone out the window because your service is spotty or your ISP goes offline and ruins your entire day, be thankful for where we are and how far we’ve come.
AI has entered the chat.
Author: Tami Coffey April 2025
