In the Featured Image, taken with iPhone 6 on Dec. 31, 2014, our cats Neko and Cali look out into our old apartment’s courtyard and onto the impending new year. The portrait showed up in my photo memories feed for today. Vitals: f/2.2, ISO 32, 1/250 sec, 4.15mm; 2:40 p.m. PST.
I take a moment to look ahead and behind with respect to meaningless milestones with respect to my use of online services—some of them for longer than many Gen Zs have been alive. October marked 20 years using Flickr. Yep, since 2005. Christmas Day was the twentieth anniversary for Twitter, now X.
But other services are much older. I vaguely recall signing up for Gmail, then in beta, sometime in 2004. If I rightly follow the archived email trail, Apple issued my still current address/ID in January 2000. Yahoo would be my oldest, continuous account going back to sometime in 1996. That’s so early in the service’s history that my account ID is merely three random letters. Wall Street Journal is similar vintage, September of the same year. Back then digital delivery was via proprietary software.
My 20-year Craigslist anniversary is May 15. YouTube: July 20. Facebook is October 1, or thereabouts. Surely other services will surface as the year progresses.