The Internet and the Environment. Search for Identity. All stories Search About Feedback Looking back at the last two Internet conferences Compiled by Jonathan Friendly Time does funny things in cyberspace. A minute can feel like a year, a year like a decade. With that in mind, we can take a look back at the first and second Harvard conferences on the Internet and Society as recorded in the pages of the conference newspapers of, respectively, four and two decades past.
Some differences are immediately apparent.
Cell phones abounded but not Palm Pilots. In 1998, the focus was on the Web's barriers of race, class and culture and the ethical responsibility of business to society, still a cyberworld away from dot-coms and their IPOs. Sun's McNealy Says Java Will Challenge Microsoft Consider the gauntlet thrown. In his keynote address to attendees at Harvard's Conference on the Internet and Society, Sun Microsystems head Scott McNealy made it clear that the guy from Microsoft had better be on his toes. I want you to know I graduated from here.