''24 Hours in Cyberspace'' (February 8, 1996) was "the largest one-day online event" up to that date, headed by photographer

Rick Smolan Rick Smolan (born November 5, 1949) is a former ''Time'', ''Life'', and ''National Geographic'' photographer best known as the co-creator of the ''Day in the Life'' book series. He is currently CEO of Against All Odds Productions, a cross-medi ...

with Jennifer Erwitt, Tom Melcher,

Samir Arora Samir Arora (born November 5, 1965) is an Indian-American businessman and CEO of Kyro since September 2021, the former CEO of Sage Digital from 2016 to 2021, and the former CEO of Mode Media (formerly Glam Media) from 2003 to April 2016. He was ...

and

Clement Mok Clement Mok (born 1958) is a graphic designer and author. Mok founded several design-related businesses — Studio Archetype (acquired by Sapient), CMCD and NetObjects, Inc. In 1997, Mok helped to launch the advertising campaign called "Th ...

."24 Hours in Cyberspace" (and more)
/ref> The project brought together the world's top 1,000 photographers, editors, programmers, and interactive designers to create a digital time capsule of online life."

Overview

''24 Hours in Cyberspace'' was an online project which took place on the then-active website, ''cyber24.com'' (and is still online at a

mirror website Mirror sites or mirrors are replicas of other websites or any network node. The concept of mirroring applies to network services accessible through any protocol, such as HTTP or FTP. Such sites have different URLs than the original site, but host ...

maintained by

Georgia Tech The Georgia Institute of Technology, commonly referred to as Georgia Tech or, in the state of Georgia, as Tech or The Institute, is a public research university and institute of technology in Atlanta, Georgia. Established in 1885, it is part of ...

).Mirror of Official Site
At the time, it was billed as the "largest collaborative

Internet The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a '' network of networks'' that consists of private, pub ...

event ever", involving thousands of photographers from all over the world, including 150 of the world's top

photojournalist Photojournalism is journalism that uses images to tell a news story. It usually only refers to still images, but can also refer to video used in broadcast journalism. Photojournalism is distinguished from other close branches of photography (such ...

s. Then Second Lady

Tipper Gore Mary Elizabeth "Tipper" Gore (née Aitcheson; born August 19, 1948) is an American social issues advocate, activist, photographer and author who was the second lady of the United States from 1993 to 2001. She was married to Al Gore, the 45th vi ...

was one of its photographers. In addition, then

Vice President A vice president, also director in British English, is an officer in government or business who is below the president (chief executive officer) in rank. It can also refer to executive vice presidents, signifying that the vice president is on t ...

Al Gore Albert Arnold Gore Jr. (born March 31, 1948) is an American politician, businessman, and environmentalist who served as the 45th vice president of the United States from 1993 to 2001 under President Bill Clinton. Gore was the Democratic Part ...

contributed the introductory essay to the ''Earthwatch'' section of the website. In this essay, he discusses the impact of the

on the

environment Environment most often refers to: __NOTOC__ * Natural environment, all living and non-living things occurring naturally * Biophysical environment, the physical and biological factors along with their chemical interactions that affect an organism or ...

education Education is a purposeful activity directed at achieving certain aims, such as transmitting knowledge or fostering skills and character traits. These aims may include the development of understanding, rationality, kindness, and honesty. Va ...

, and increased communication between people. The goal was not to show pictures of

website A website (also written as a web site) is a collection of web pages and related content that is identified by a common domain name and published on at least one web server. Examples of notable websites are Google Search, Google, Facebook, Amaz ...

s and

computer A computer is a machine that can be programmed to Execution (computing), carry out sequences of arithmetic or logical operations (computation) automatically. Modern digital electronic computers can perform generic sets of operations known as C ...

monitor Monitor or monitor may refer to: Places * Monitor, Alberta * Monitor, Indiana, town in the United States * Monitor, Kentucky * Monitor, Oregon, unincorporated community in the United States * Monitor, Washington * Monitor, Logan County, West Vir ...

s, but rather images of people whose lives were affected by the use of the growing Internet. Photographs were sent digitally to

editors Editing is the process of selecting and preparing written, photographic, visual, audible, or cinematic material used by a person or an entity to convey a message or information. The editing process can involve correction, condensation, or ...

working real-time to choose the best pictures to put on the project's website. The website received more than 4 million hits in the 24 hours that the project was active., BYTE, May 1996 ''24 Hours in Cyberspace'' served as a cover story for '' U.S. News & World Report''. The technological infrastructure of the project was provided by a startup company spinoff from

Apple Computer Apple Inc. is an American multinational technology company headquartered in Cupertino, California, United States. Apple is the largest technology company by revenue (totaling in 2021) and, as of June 2022, is the world's biggest company b ...

named NetObjects that was founded by

, David Kleinberg,

and Sal Arora. The system supplied by NetObjects allowed Smolan's international network of editors and photojournalists to submit text and images through web forms; it ran on

Unix Unix (; trademarked as UNIX) is a family of multitasking, multiuser computer operating systems that derive from the original AT&T Unix, whose development started in 1969 at the Bell Labs research center by Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, and ot ...

, relied on a database for content storage (

Illustra Illustra was a commercialized version of the Postgres object-relational database management system (DBMS) sold by Illustra Information Technologies, a company formed by Michael Stonebraker and Gary Morgenthaler and several of Michael Stonebraker's ...

) and used templating for easy and near-instantaneous page generation that obviated the need for the site's editorial staff to have any coding skills. NetObjects was first to create the technology that would enable a team of the world's top picture editors and writers to become instant Web page designers. It let them do what they do best—edit and write—and automatically generate finished, sophisticated Web pages that millions of people were able to see only minutes after they were designed. Three million people clicked onto the 24 Hours site; the blaze of publicity surrounding the 24 Hours in Cyberspace project helped NetObjects raise $5.4 million in venture capital. The project reportedly cost as much as $5 million, and was funded with assistance from 50 companies, mostly in the form of loans of

computer hardware Computer hardware includes the physical parts of a computer, such as the computer case, case, central processing unit (CPU), Random-access memory, random access memory (RAM), Computer monitor, monitor, Computer mouse, mouse, Computer keyboard, ...

and

technology Technology is the application of knowledge to reach practical goals in a specifiable and reproducible way. The word ''technology'' may also mean the product of such an endeavor. The use of technology is widely prevalent in medicine, science, ...

experts.

Adobe Systems Adobe Inc. ( ), originally called Adobe Systems Incorporated, is an American multinational computer software company incorporated in Delaware and headquartered in San Jose, California. It has historically specialized in software for the crea ...

Sun Microsystems Sun Microsystems, Inc. (Sun for short) was an American technology company that sold computers, computer components, software, and information technology services and created the Java programming language, the Solaris operating system, ZFS, the ...

and

Kodak The Eastman Kodak Company (referred to simply as Kodak ) is an American public company that produces various products related to its historic basis in analogue photography. The company is headquartered in Rochester, New York, and is incorpor ...

were listed as major supporters.

Book

A companion book by

and Jennifer Erwitt was published in 1996. It contains two hundred photographs from the over 200,000 which were taken on that day. It also contains a CD with the full contents of the original website.

Smithsonian

A photographic exhibition was unveiled at the

Smithsonian Institution The Smithsonian Institution ( ), or simply the Smithsonian, is a group of museums and education and research centers, the largest such complex in the world, created by the U.S. government "for the increase and diffusion of knowledge". Founded ...

National Museum of American History The National Museum of American History: Kenneth E. Behring Center collects, preserves, and displays the heritage of the United States in the areas of social, political, cultural, scientific, and military history. Among the items on display is t ...

on 23 January 1997, featuring 70 photos from the project by the 24 Hours in Cyberspace team,

, Jennifer Erwitt,

and Vic Zaud. It was introduced by then

who was also given a copy of the book and CD.

References

*Smolan, Rick and Jennifer Erwitt. ''24 Hours in Cyberspace:Photographed on one day by 150 of the world's leading photojournalists.'' Que Macmillan Publishing, 1996.

Notes

External links

Mirror of Official site mapLife in Cyberspace—Way Back When
-''

American Heritage American Heritage may refer to: * ''American Heritage'' (magazine) * ''The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language'' * American Heritage Rivers * American Heritage School (disambiguation) See also *National Register of Historic Place ...

''
Casting a Web on the World
- ''

The Washington Post ''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large nati ...

''
Interview about ''24 Hours in Cyberspace''

- ''

Time Magazine ''Time'' (stylized in all caps) is an American news magazine based in New York City. For nearly a century, it was published weekly, but starting in March 2020 it transitioned to every other week. It was first published in New York City on Mar ...

'' * -

{{Webby Awards, year=1997, cat=Books and Magazines, type=Nominee History websites of the United States Texts related to the history of the Internet Books about the Internet 1996 non-fiction books American photography websites Al Gore Smithsonian Institution exhibitions Internet events