Netdiver Mag

I am honored that Kuvva’s founder – Laszlito Kovacs – invited me to do an interview and thank you – for the very very glowing introduction. I was not expecting that.

I share tips about self-promotion, curation and building a great portfolio.

Read it here.

All good – maintenance is postponed. Sorry about the inconvenience.

Netdiver Mag is undergoing some changes sitewide. Sections may break + nav too.
It’s going to get / be all better.

Netdiver website is in maintenance mode. Sections affected are the galleries. Should be completed by end of day.

I have been carefully curating the ‘#tags’ for each featured post since onset and now?

Woot! Fully stocked with 2.6k posts + tags on Netdiver Mag. Fully searchable: try the search box to find more eye candy.

I remember – when we ‘upgraded’ to Netscape (and proudly own a ‘hard’ copy).. don’t recall which browser we were using prior in ’95. I recall vividly Bill infamous: "I don’t believe in the Internet" and the big ensuing vicious attack by M$.

Epic and devastating.

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Marc Andreessen may have known what he was getting into when he cowrote Mosaic at the National Center for Supercomputer Applications, but it wasn’t until he graduated from college and met with some Silicon Valley types that the Web revolution really began.

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In 1994 Andreessen launched Netscape Communications, offering his new Navigator Web browser (based on Mosaic) to the world. Finally, users outside of the academic world would get a taste of HTML, and nothing has been the same since.

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Netscape browser archive.

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Netscape chose Netdiver as one of their *Best of What’s New* (Dive in) link from August 2000 to Jan 2001.

July 14/00 *Rage of the day * site by Netscape editors (Dive in).

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Don’t know how they found our fledging little online magazine. Maybe we could submit – can’t recall. But in the end – we actually owe Netscape putting Netdiver Mag on the map sorta speaking – sending huge traffic and giving us massive visibility.

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How Microsoft Attacked the Beast who created Netscape, Mozilla Firefox & Skype.

“It was like a visit from Don Corleone, I expected to see a bloodied computer on my bed next day” – Marc Andreessen to Microsoft.

View the full video!

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via: Jan Jursa + Jason Kokkte + PCWorld

A mission. Cultivate. Resist. Elevate. Sustain.

I cultivate featuring good people – good projects and good designs ONLY.

I resist following trends and false perceptions of hype or edge. I don’t compromise EVER!

I elevate the best in our humanity – we are all imperfect ANYWAYS.

I sustain a passion to empower the creative industry, gain it respect and visibility TODAY.

In 1995, JF and I started a little company – Netdiver. It’s original mission was to uncover and report on the economic possibilities of the emerging www.

ndlr: JF & I in pixel regalia presenting a new logo. Still love it (/him too).

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We were going to ‘dive’ to fetch the pearls – in opposition to ‘surf’ – which was then buzz word du jour.

We thought it pretty clever.

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Remember vividly my awe upon ‘entering’ the infant web – wow – we are now connected to the world! To this day – still awed.

First search was this single word: Idea.

Landed on TWChiatDay – Idea Factory which posited on a ‘new’ approach on how to run a creative studio – horizontal instead of hierarchial.

The interior ‘spaces’ were amazing – and have now become the norm for all those Silicon Valley giants and startups: funky offices – team pods – free food – game – flexible hours, etc.

Exactly what I was envisioning.

I concluded – if there’s one maybe there’s hundreds??

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ndlr: Netdiver site banner circa ’99. Diving not surfing ;))

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I remember the early www to be barely above double-digits millions. The web was ‘small’ and somewhat.. uh.. intimate.

I theorized ‘freelancing’ to become the economic norm – clients to be landed anywhere in the world and the ‘disenfranchising’ of selling both creative skills and goods to be possible.

At long last – designers could change the world with ‘communication’, ‘exchange’ and ‘collaboration. The circulation of new ideas to be unbelievably faster than pre-Internet since new ideas always reached ‘culture’ – post-mortem for authors.

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Followed 3 intensive years of stealth research gazing / gauging the ‘opportunities’ that would be afforded creatives types when they would settle in the then land of MiS, technologists and scientists.

I was mind-mapping infinite files to locate like-minded people who – as us – were exploring and building what today has become such a commodity – although an irreplaceable one as that.

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In ’98, I decided to ‘share’ the results of the ‘likeminded’ research – aka bookmarks with small screencaps – our visual trademark 200 x 115 pixels and a bit of text to describe it.

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ndlr: Wayback Machine archives

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We hard-coded a ‘website’ with frames and attempted to emulate a ‘magazine’ look and started to post (lol) – what would later become Netdiver Mag.

Way long before blogs were even in the ‘pipe’ of extraordinarily talented visionaries.

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ndlr: Netdiver vintage pins + postcard distributed at conferences / events.
Reissue TBA

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Through the years I kept a directory titled ‘x_pired’ in which I saved thumbnails of websites either redesigned or gone offline.

I had this sentimental attachment. I remembered all of them. It made me sad when so much creativity (not counting the man-hours) was thrown out in the ether. Once bright lights. Now gone.

Forever.

I chose to turn that sadness into a somewhat very unofficial web museum of what was new in design.

This is what Netdiver Vintage edition is about.

Since onset – I had and still have a very privileged overview of the web. When I went on hiatus – I don’t exaggerate stating having visited over 150k websites.

I have saved all the ‘archives’ pre-database years – and I am continually adding to it. So far 2.4k projects listed.

Enjoy.

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ndlr: Netdiver Vintage 2 columns interface.

ndlr2: Hard to believe it was once trendy to use very + very small fonts.