The 1995 Blog

1995: The year the future began

Re-reading Clifford Stoll’s 1995 Internet predictions: Bah!

Clifford Stoll’s 1995 newsmagazine critique of the emergent Internet is a digital classic, an off-target artifact that is constantly being rediscovered, and scoffed at, online. Few essays published in 1995 … Continue reading

February 28, 2018 · 1 Comment

The 15 ‘most influential’ Web sites? A third of them date to 1995

Sure, lists about the “most important this” or the “most fun that” tend to be inane. And eye-rolling in their contrivance. But Time magazine’s recent compilation of the “15 most … Continue reading

October 24, 2017 · 5 Comments

CNN series gives kitchen-sink treatment to the ’90s

Call it the kitchen-sink approach to documentary-making. That’s an effective summation of the seven-part, eight-hour CNN series, “The Nineties,” which wrapped up last night with a jumbled look at the … Continue reading

August 21, 2017 · 7 Comments

Messaging, sequencing a puzzle as CNN launches ’90s series

It’s certainly commendable that the 1990s — a decade Americans too often treat casually or dismissively — is receiving extended attention from CNN, in a seven-part documentary series that premieres … Continue reading

July 9, 2017 · 3 Comments

22 years after, ‘Newsweek’ takes red pen to flawed Internet column

It’s been 22 years since Newsweek magazine published one of the most astonishingly off-target commentaries about the Internet and the early Web. The commentary was so strikingly wrong-headed that it … Continue reading

March 13, 2017 · 5 Comments

PBS doc on OKC bombing signals anew the significance of 1995

PBS on Tuesday is to air an “American Experience” documentary about the deadliest episode of home-grown terrorism in U.S. history, the Oklahoma City bombing of 1995. The program revisits a … Continue reading

February 4, 2017 · 8 Comments

The ‘Netscape Moment,’ 21 years on

Today marks the 21st anniversary of the “Netscape Moment” of 1995, the day when a Silicon Valley startup’s eye-popping market debut illuminated the World Wide Web for millions of people … Continue reading

August 9, 2016 · 4 Comments

ESPN’s O.J. doc: Less exceptional than its rave reviews

For a five-part documentary that lasted nearly 8 hours, ESPN’s much-hyped treatment of O.J. Simpson was often short on nuance and explanatory detail. The film in the end was far … Continue reading

June 19, 2016 · 12 Comments

Looking back at a watershed year: 1995 in blog posts

The year 1995 was a watershed in digital media, domestic terrorism, political scandal, crime and justice, and international diplomacy. Over the past 12 months, The 1995 Blog revisited the watershed … Continue reading

December 27, 2015 · 34 Comments

Christmas and cyberspace, 1995: Toe-dipping online

The Internet and World Wide Web entered mainstream consciousness in 1995 — more tentatively than in a rush. News reports at Christmas that year suggested as much: It was a … Continue reading

December 24, 2015 · 1 Comment

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