1995-96: REVIEW AND OUTLOOK : The Cutting Edge: COMPUTING / TECHNOLOGY / INNOVATION : The Year of the Net
1995 was the year of the Internet. It stirred debates in Congress, student suspensions, created new business opportunities and some new millionaires, and entered millions of new homes. Some of the year’s highlights and lowlights on the Net:
* Nielsen did its first survey of the Net, concluding that 24 million Americans and Canadians aged 16 and above used the Internet over a three-month period, and 2.5 million people have shopped on the net. But another survey found that, with the exception of e-mail, no single online feature is used regularly and that CD-ROM drives are more popular than connecting to an online service.
* Although movie screens were filled with cyberspace during the year--remember “Johnny Mnemonic,” “The Net,” “Hackers” and “Virtuosity”--audiences apparently preferred to stay online.
* U.S. businesses hungry for a digital address registered 700 domain names a day in 1995. New firms sprang up to create World Wide Web home pages to meet the demand. But some say the Net still isn’t safe for credit cards. Visa and MasterCard just resumed talks this month aimed at preventing theft of financial information over the Net.
* China allowed commercial Internet access to its citizens for the first time, while Vietnam and Singapore tightened control over their populations’ fast-growing use of the medium.
* The first Internet Girl Scout Troop was formed. Troop 732 of Manhattan Beach became Internet Troop 1 last fall.
* Aaron Spelling beware. “The Spot,” with a plot somewhere between “Melrose Place” and “The Real World,” became the first soap opera on the net.
* Hacker Kevin Mitnick was apprehended in 1995--not for the first time but perhaps for the last--as the FBI apprehended him with 20,000 credit card numbers in his possession.
* The University of California allowed students to e-mail admission applications for the first time, and two students--one in Michigan and one at Caltech--were suspended or expelled for sexual harassment via the Net.
* Although congressional leaders spent a good deal of the year demanding ways to curtail indecency on the Net, Netizens protested what they see as censorship. Also in ‘95: House Speaker Newt Gingrich and Vice President Al Gore argued over which one more ardently supported the information superhighway.
* Netscape co-founders Jim Clark and Marc Andreessen became the Net’s first tycoons asthe market valuation of their company--which produces the most popular World Wide Web browser--grew to more than $6 billion after last summer’s public offering.
