The first issue of net magazine hit the newsstands in 1994. Take a look back at how the web has changed in the last 20 years.
Something miraculous happened in December 2014: the first ever issue of net magazine hit the newsstand.
Essentially a hobbyist magazine, ".net" as it was back then (the dot has recently retired) dedicated itself to exploring and analysing the latest developments on the information superhighway.
Back then, the wired world moved at a heady 56kb if you were very lucky. People used things called fax machines, software arrived on floppy discs and mobile phones were the size of bricks phones. Yet, according to that first issue, a heady 30 million people were already using the web.
How we used to live
Today, over three billion people around the world are connected and it's easy to forget how we once lived, worked, played, explored and adventured online. If you haven't been buying net magazine for the past 20 years, here are some classic covers, each giving a snapshot of what online life was like all those years ago. For example...
Back in 1998, we felt like we were drowning under a tide of spam. Net mag bravely set out to discover who was sending the junk, and dished out advice about how to stop it.
In July 1998 the magazine when on the hunt for the web's worst fake sites, including a phony Jennifer Aniston page.
In June 2007, net when were every self respecting geek, surfer and internet fan wanted to go: inside Google's HQ.
If all this has made you crave a copy of the latest issue, then follow your inspiration: you can buy single copies, money saving subscriptions and digital editions online, right now!
Tom May is an award-winning journalist and editor specialising in design, photography and technology. Author of the Amazon #1 bestseller Great TED Talks: Creativity, published by Pavilion Books, Tom was previously editor of Professional Photography magazine, associate editor at Creative Bloq, and deputy editor at net magazine. Today, he is a regular contributor to Creative Bloq and its sister sites Digital Camera World, T3.com and Tech Radar. He also writes for Creative Boom and works on content marketing projects.
