early internet
Modem connection era
The early internet refers to the World Wide Web roughly from the mid-1990s through the early 2000s—an era of dial-up connections, personal homepages, and web rings before social media consolidated online activity.
The phrase evokes nostalgia for a more decentralized, experimental internet: That website has real early internet energy.
Sometimes used attributively: early internet aesthetics, early internet culture.
- ARPANETDefense Department's pioneering network
- UsenetDistributed discussion system
- guestbookRecord for visitor signatures
- hit counterWebsite visitor counter
- under constructionCurrently being made
dancing baby · BBS · Netscape · TCP/IP · webring · AOL · You've Got Mail · chat room · login · email · dial-up · 56k modem · modem · phone lines · Napster · warez · AltaVista · Ask Jeeves
- obsolete techfloppy disk, VHS, dial-up modem, cassette tape, floppy disks
- Computing HistoryENIAC, UNIVAC, mainframe, mainframes, punch card
- 2000siPhone, Wii, MySpace, YouTube, Hurricane Katrina
- Gen XGeneration X, Gen X, MTV generation, latchkey kids, slackers
- obsolete media8-track, Betamax, cassette tapes, floppy disks, gramophones
early internethigh-speed internet
Rapid data transmission service
5G connectivity · cloud computing · streaming era · social media age · smartphone era