Five years is a long time.

Yes, it's easy to take everything we have for granted, from the large to the small, but five years ago today being in New York City meant being on your own -- there were no means of personal communications; the infrastructure needed to support wireless and wired technologies had been suddenly blown apart.

It was a return to the days of mass communications solely -- there was no such thing as personal communication.  And being unconnected on the street really meant not knowing what was going on -- word of mouth ruled and that lack of knowledge fueled speculation on what was occurring and how to react to it.

Wired News has a good article on how 9/11 gave birth to the blog -- among other things ...