15 years ago today, on September 15, 1995, I opened my very first email account. Who’d have thought that in 2010 I’d send an email to tens of thousands of people in 50 countries and tell ’em all a crazy story? (And post this from Brussels, Belgium no less.) Congrats on being one of those lucky people :^>
Earlier that day I’d been driving down by Chicago’s Midway airport and I experienced another first. I saw something on a billboard I’d never seen before:
“www.southwest.com”
My first URL in a piece of advertising. I’d never been on the web before, but I’d heard about it. I distinctly remember thinking at the time that this was probably a pretty big deal.
I knew this guy who ran a Bulletin Board Service (BBS) from his apartment about 2 blocks from where I lived. It was called Syslink. I paid him a few bucks and he set me up with an email account through an address called syslink.mcs.com.
I had a 1200 baud modem on a 286 computer that Laura and I had bought during college. It had no hard drive, just floppy disks. I would start the computer with the DOS boot disk then insert the modem disk and dial in. I’d get on the BBS and send emails to my very few friends who used email.
The guy even gave me special email addresses where I could send them a search phrase and get back listings of websites on those topics. A pre-search engine search engine.
Geez, just telling you this story makes me sound old. As though I grew up shoveling coal into a steam engine. Can you hear my bones creak?
Actually, at 41 I don’t consider myself old at all. But in Internet “dog years,” that 286 computer we bought in 1990 is 140 years old :^>
The advent of email meant that for the first time in human history, any human could contact any other human, anywhere in the world, for FREE. Is that worth celebrating, or what?
I predict email will last a very long time, much like the Compact Disc has lasted a very long time. It’s hard to obsolete something that’s fundamentally right. Email is *the* most intimate of all mass communications media and whatever skills you develop in using email is among the most rewarding there is.
Audio and video and virtual experiences will continue to multiply. But there will never be a substitute for two people exchanging written words with each other. Long may it last. Join me in celebrating 15 years of long-distance relationships with people around the world.
Perry Marshall
My short course on email marketing:
www.perrymarshall.com/invisible-streams/
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About the Author
Perry Marshall has launched two revolutions in sales and marketing. In Pay-Per-Click advertising, he pioneered best practices and wrote the world's best selling book on Google advertising. And he's driven the 80/20 Principle deeper than any other author, creating a new movement in business.
He is referenced across the Internet and by Harvard Business Review, The New York Times, INC and Forbes Magazine.
4 Comments on “My Email Anniversary”
It’s nice story pull the memories back , I bought my first pc in 1982 it was mother board without case connected to bw tv and tape recoder for saving any works using Basic language long long before symphony then windows>>>
and that pc 64 k and need 3 minutes to check the memory every time of start up
rgrds
mosa
Hi Perry,
Good heavens! 286! I haven’t heard that term in ages… I remember I went to my first Pentium and thought this was FAST!
By now we are faster then ever and I still think we are slow! Hehe…
Totally get what you are saying. I am in my 40-ies myself and though it is ages ago that I started on computers and the Internet, I still feel 18!
Do well Perry!
Best, Co
Perry,
I started a computer sales company back in 1991 called NXpensive Student Computers. I bought used, refurbished 286’s and resold them for a couple of hundred dollars profit.
I remember selling them and not even knowing what a 720K disc drive was. I just knew that people wanted to buy these things and I had a source to buy them at wholesale.
When I married my wife, she had $5,000 that she inherited when her father had died. I used all of it to buy a stack of 286’s to sell out of my bedroom.
I could have been the Michael Dell of BYU. But alas, I became a consultant. ha ha
It was cool to hear that story. Thanks Perry.
David
I remember interviewing a Young Turk (Turquette?) engineer about that time, and thinking how ludicrous it was that she included her e-mail address on her resume.
Of course, in that same round of interviews, one young guy had a diamond stud in his ear. That showed him the door waay fast.
Now I match my stud earrings to my shirts, have I-don’t-know-how-many e-mail accounts, and those Young Turks ate my corporate lunch (I need to find them and thank them).
I had no idea…
Thanks Perry. I have 16 years on you – make that 112.