This is Part 1 of a personal look back at the sites, tools, behaviors, platforms, and technologies that have changed our lives in the past 10 years. Please add your own thoughts and memories in the comments.



In June 2000, I graduated from college and moved down to New York with my closest friends to pursue a career as an actor in the theater.

Boy, a lot has changed since then, huh?

As the decade comes to an end, I've decided to take this opportunity to look back on how the internet has evolved along with my relationship with it.

When I moved to the city, I was lucky enough to have a friend who was willing to share not only his small apartment with me, but also his computer and internet connection. In those days, I wasn't using the web for much beyond email and watching stupid videos (ironically these two activities still account for the bulk of my daily time on the web). Although our internet was relatively fast, we still had to wait several minutes for movie trailers to load. Every once in a while we'd get a couple of friends with laptops together and play Command & Conquer over the local network.

My only email address when I graduated was my college address, and I soon set up an alternative address at a domain that my older brother had recently acquired.

I remember buying my first cell-phone, a Nokia 650, since I was looking for work and was attempting to maintain a long-distance relationship. It didn't do anything except make phone calls. It was big. It was heavy. But, it did enable me to talk to anyone in the country, at any time, from anywhere I went. And that was a revolution.

In September 2000, I got a day job at a quirky little company in Chelsea that sold tennis equipment wholesale. There were only two other employees, and I was the only person who really knew how to use a computer. Thinking back, this job turned out to play a crucial role as a playground and laboratory for me to learn about the web over the next three years.