It's my one hundred and eleventieth birthday!
I love a good infographic as much as -- OK probably more than -- the next guy. Today the folks at HubSpot (my place of employment and the source of much personal and professional joy for me) came out with this beauty:
Pretty sweet, right?
Whenever I see a timeline like this, I can't resist mentally building a personal timeline alongside it, and seeing how they intersect.
For instance, I started blogging in 2003, just before Google bought Blogger. My first blog was on Blogspot (as it was called then) and after about six months I moved over to Wordpress because I liked the user interface and admin tools much better than what I was seeing in Blogspot.
It's funny, I started blogging before most people heard of the word "blog," but I never did own an iPod. Sure, I have an iPhone now, but I never cottoned on to that particular technological bandwagon until it was bundled with a whole bunch of other technology that I found useful.
Does that make me less of an "early adopter," or just, like most people, a somewhat picky consumer?
How does your personal history line up with the timeline above?
- When did you first start reading blogs?
- What were your first thoughts when you heard about Facebook?
- How do you feel about Facebook now?
- What about Twitter? Do you "get it," or are you still on the fence about it?
- How do you think that might change in a few years? In a few months?
- What do you think a future timeline will say about the success of the iPad?
- Will it change how YOU live?
- Did you think an iPod would change your life, or at least your habits, at first?
- Did it?
I'm not making any value judgments here, you know. Just thinking out loud, about how perspectives can change, and how the alarmingly new and seemingly alien can slowly -- or quickly -- become as familiar as a salt shaker.
Which wasn't invented all that long ago, either, in the scheme of things. And probably caused something of a stir, at that.