Oh, that Wild, Whimsical Web!

The Internet was built by a bunch of university snobs.

The World Wide Web — not the same thing as the Internet! — was built by a bunch of intellectual scientists.

The Information Superhighway was built by Al Gore. (Just ask him, he’ll tell you!)

But the soul of all digital information delivery systems was built by a bunch of long-haired Silicon Valley nerds.

Want proof? Just look at company names.

For decades, what was the name of the company that was the world leader in computer technology? IBM. It stands for International Business Machines. They made their mark with adding machines. And time clocks. Uh. Huh.

In the early 1980s, what was the name of the company that created the world leading operating system for personal computers? Micro. Soft. Microsoft. Get it? Micro-computer software. Had to think a long time about that one, didn’t you, Bill?

But what company emerged as one of the first Internet search engines, later to become a leading portal for information delivery? Yahoo! With an exclamation point! Literally!

And what company came up a few years later to become the leader in search and just about everything else digital? Google. Without an exclamation point — but with a really cool name. It’s a play on the word “googol”, which means a number with a hundred zeros — literally greater than the number of protons in the observable universe.

And it kinda looks like the word “giggle”, which amplifies its coolness.

The world of Internet branding is littered with little nuggets of triviality. The name “Amazon” originally stood for the world’s largest bookstore, named after the world’s largest river. Wikipedia was named after a bus in Hawaii, which was named after a Hawaiian word for “quick”. eBay was named after the consulting company of its founder. Apple was named after a fruit as an afterthought, and was allowed to keep that name only after they promised Apple Records that they would never, ever enter the business of selling music.

I could go on. Zappos. Twitter. Pinterest. All big names on the Internet. And just saying their name makes you want to smile.

Industrial giants of old tended to have industrial-sounding names: Kodak. Standard Oil. General Electric. United Technologies. Hrummppph!

It’s nice to see that digital companies of today recognize the importance of a good brand. But they also see that a whimsical brand name doesn’t cheapen the value of their stock. It only makes it more memorable. And more fun to say.

Think about that next time you giggle about Google.

This Information Highway is Super

I am constantly amazed at the power of the Internet. I had an experience today that reminded me of some of my very first Internet experiences.

In the mid-1990s, I was just starting to figure out what all the Internet stuff was all about. I had been programming mainframe computers for years. We had always noted with a certain amount of pride that computers were like “islands”. They had a vast amount of processing power within them. And, oh yeah, if you wanted to move data between them, that’s what tape drives were for.

But now I had my brand new Packard-Bell computer, complete with Windows 3.1 and a 2400 baud dial-up modem. A friend of mine had shown me a really cool program called “Netscape”. I was ready to impress people.

Of course, the easiest person for me to impress was my mother. So I hauled her into my office. I was going to show her this Information Superhighway that Al Gore was talking about.

I only knew about one site, a search engine called “WebCrawler”. Look, Mom. All you have to do is type a topic into this screen and it will go out to the Information Superhighway and find out everything there is to know about it.

I will never forget what happened next. Of all the things that I could have demonstrated to my mother, for some weird reason I picked — are you ready? — “Meg Ryan”. Look, Mom. Let’s see if there’s anything at all out there about “Meg Ryan”.

I pressed “enter” and 3.276 seconds later, a list of Meg Ryan pages came on the screen. Dozens and dozens and dozens of pages. I thought she might be mentioned in one or two places. But there they were. There were Meg Ryan pictures. Meg Ryan movies. Meg Ryan scripts. Meg Ryan fan clubs. There was a whole universe of Meg Ryan in my office in front of my eyes and Mom’s eyes.

I don’t know who was more surprised, me or Mom. No, it was me. Mom responded with a polite “That’s nice, dear.” My eyes were huge and my chin was on the floor. Oh, my God. What has just been invented, and I didn’t even know about it?

That was my first omg experience with the Internet.

In the intervening years, there have been several others. But for the most part, I have come to expect that literally the world of information is at your fingertips if you have an Internet connection.

Just think of the places to have your questions answered. You want a real expert to answer? Go to www.allexperts.com, pick an expert, type in your question, and you’ll have a response in a couple of days.

Can’t wait? Type your question into answers.yahoo.com. It’s like yelling a question into a room crowded with people. Within minutes, half a dozen people will have responded.

Want to clarify the meaning or spelling of a word? Mr. Webster is waiting for you at www.m-w.com.

Want to read a more seminal article about just about any subject from aardvarks to zymology? Check out www.wikipedia.org. My son has done research for complete homework assignments without ever leaving the Wikipedia site.

Which brings us to my current astonishment. A few days ago, a friend of mine told me a joke. I wanted to re-tell it, but I wasn’t sure exactly how it went. Could I possibly find something as mundane as an insider musicians’ joke on the Internet, knowing only the punch line?

Yep. I typed a couple of words of the punch line into my favorite search engine (I’m a Yahoo! guy — Google is for snobbish wimps. Real men search with Yahoo!), and there it was. Not only the joke, but four or five variations of it. The same joke in slightly different settings, slightly different set-ups, but the same punch line.

I shouldn’t be amazed. I should come to expect it. But I do this stuff for a living and I still don’t understand how it all works.

The Internet gives us jokes, facts, pornography, civics, movie critiques, mp3 files (free and pirated), weather reports, sports scores, driving directions, and advice for the forgotten and the forlorn. All mixed together like noodles and tomatoes in goulash.

I think my generation has done a pretty good job of gathering and delivering all this stuff. It’s up to the next generation to sort it all out.