My Internet History.

This post is inspired by my friend (who regularly reads my blog) who asked me how I got into blogging. That question got me thinking and had me walking down memory lane. LONG POST AHEAD!

It all started on the summer of '04. My dad used to buy and sell second hand laptops so we had a lot of spare ones at home. A lot of my friends were asking me what my "Y!M" (Yahoo Messenger) ID was and I didn't know what the hell that was so I asked my mum to help me set it up. It was also the time when Friendster was so popular (it's like Facebook's twin! but it's dead now) so I joined that site as well and became so hooked. We were still on dial-up so I had no choice but to spend all my allowance on internet cards. I was obsessed, it was like magic in front of me! At the age of 11 (or 12) I was so impressed by all the things that my laptop can show me. I searched for my long lost friends on Friendster and I found more than half of them! I was literally in awe.

The internet became my best friend at night and during the weekends, so I started learning and figuring out a lot of stuff. Friendster can be customised by using html so I "Yahooed" (I wasn't familiar with Google back then ok) everything I needed to know about html and because of my persistence to make my profile pretty, I learnt how to do the basic stuff in no time. My profile was full of glitter texts, GIFs, colourful backgrounds, etc. (embarrassing, I know! But I was only 12 ok)

Then Xanga (a blogging site which is still alive and kicking today) came along and a lot of my friends as well as the people from my school have signed up so I decided to make one for myself too to see what the fuss was all about. By then, I already have the basic knowledge about html so all I had to worry about was where to find the templates and edit it from there. That's where I started my first legit blog. It was really fun because my friends and I comment on each others' blogs and we all talk about it in school. We were able to express ourselves and at the same time, improve our writing skills through blogging. I was so hooked on my blog that I actually go to an internet shop when the internet's down at home just so I can update it!
But like any other trends, this whole fuss just died when a new one came along.

The next one is Multiply. (which is now a virtual marketplace) I actually love Multiply very much, it's like a combo of Facebook and Blogger, and the customisation options are endless! I posted photos on one album (trust me, my social life was way better back then so I had a lot of photos to upload!) and typed about my day on the blog section. Hell, I even uploaded my current jams and fave videos! I even remember when my classmates used to say "oh that is so going to be blogged about on Multiply" and "post the photos from the field trip when you get home!"

And then Facebook came along; Slowly but surely, people started neglecting their Multiply sites and spent more time on Pet Society and Farmville. I can even remember when Facebook had this whole friend awards thing, I was always voted as 'Miss Blogger/Writer'. Then after a while, it's like Facebook just took over the internet and put Myspace out of business, as well as the other popular sites in every country. Friendster used to be so popular in Asia, while Myspace was a big hit in Europe and America... (Fine, Bebo! Bebo was the main site here in NZ.) And now, everyone just switched to Facebook and never looked back.

I also discovered Tumblr around the same time that I found Facebook (2009) I consider it was one my "best online era" because I found real life friends on Tumblr. It was only 2 months before I had to leave for NZ so I befriended a lot of NZ-ers and for me, it was one of the best decisions that I have ever made! Tumblr also made me understand a lot of things that I never would have acknowledged in real life. I learnt so much, it actually turned me into a much better person. I became more open-minded, more accepting of other people; It changed my perspective in life - in a positive way.

(refer to photo above) Seriously, how cool is this?! It was on every Tumblr user's dashboard but only Marissa can respond to it! I remember crying like a baby on that day. Read more about it here

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During the time when everyone was moving to Facebook, I lost interest in blogging. It was also the time when I migrated here to NZ so I was still in the process of getting used to the changes and whatnot. I stopped blogging for 3.5 years, and now here I am, typing my internet history on my current blog. Of course, there were a lot of sites that I joined and got addicted to but these are the main ones that I thought you'd like to know about.

What about you? What sites did you join when you first discovered the internet?

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