About

The year was 1998. Mark McGwire breaks Roger Maris’ single season home-run world record and makes the world smile (with the possible exception of Maris’ family). El Nino affected the world’s climate and puts weather forcasters in a snit, and President Clinton and Monica Lewinsky made the world rethink their positions on black berets and cigars. And a newspaper column about the Internet makes its debut in a Southern Indiana newspaper.

Okay, 1998 might not seem all that long ago, but in the world of computers and the Internet, “Internet Siteseeing” is practically a third-generation business right now. It was pre-iMac, for Pete’s sake.

As a former reporter, I became aware of the fact that almost all the column and articles dealing with the Internet were A): written for people who had never turned a computer on before, or B): knew their TCP/IP address by heart. So, I saw a opening, and I went for it.

“Internet Siteseeing” first appeared in the New Albany Tribune in 1998, and in the Louisville Eccentric Observer (LEO) the following year. By these paper’s circulation figures, approximately 100,000 people per week in the Metro Louisville area received these publications. Then, times changed, page count and columnist got cut to the bone (literally for one and figuratively for the other), and by this time, I had been doing this for six years and felt I had finally reached the end of the Internet.

Well, now the Internet has renewed itself, and I’ve recharged and launched the new version! It’s a blog now, the way God intended it to be.

“Internet Siteseeing isn’t so much about the Internet as it is things you can find on the Internet. I write the column for people who use the World Wide Web to learn about various subjects that might not have anything to do with computers, not for people who are online for the joy of being in front of a computer.

From the beginning, I’ve had two rules about the column, and they remain true in this new incarnation:

1) I will never, ever use the word “Cyber” just to sound all techie. I hate that.

2) The column topics will be varied so that, if this week’s column didn’t strike your fancy, maybe next week’s will wack it good.

So, thank you for your interest, and if you have any ideas for topics you’d like to see here, please let me know.

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Dave Davis is a writer, graphic designer, editor, publisher, lover, fighter and owner of Panorama Creative Group. He has written Internet Siteseeing since 1998, with a break here and there. He’s married to the lovely Kristen Davis, and knows how lucky he is.