Google recently celebrated its 10 year birthday and the present it gives us is the ability to search the company's index from the past. 1998 is not available due to technical reasons but 2001 is. This is a great year to revisit for communications and tech because it was the aftermath of the dotcom bubble bursting in March of 2000 and the communications bubble in November of 2000.
Not surprising, the top result for IP telephony was VocalTec Communications. For Internet telephony it was VocalTec again.
A search on Skype returns genealogy data which is not surprising as the software hadn't been invented.
A search for Call Center returns CommWeb first -- a now defunct communications portal once published by CMP.
A search for WiFi brings back only 86 results and the first is the Wisconsin Fabricare institute.
In all, a walk down memory lane shows few surprises but what it does do is remind you how accurate Google was even back then. It also reinforces what I don't like -- the fact that Wikipedia and government sites dominate Google results today.
Of course one final thought is this demonstration reminds us that Google is like that aunt you have who can never part with anything and as a result has a house filled with nick nacks. So be careful what you post online as Google will never ever delete it and one day your great great grandkids will be reading it.
Not surprising, the top result for IP telephony was VocalTec Communications. For Internet telephony it was VocalTec again.
A search on Skype returns genealogy data which is not surprising as the software hadn't been invented.
A search for Call Center returns CommWeb first -- a now defunct communications portal once published by CMP.
A search for WiFi brings back only 86 results and the first is the Wisconsin Fabricare institute.
In all, a walk down memory lane shows few surprises but what it does do is remind you how accurate Google was even back then. It also reinforces what I don't like -- the fact that Wikipedia and government sites dominate Google results today.
Of course one final thought is this demonstration reminds us that Google is like that aunt you have who can never part with anything and as a result has a house filled with nick nacks. So be careful what you post online as Google will never ever delete it and one day your great great grandkids will be reading it.
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