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Thursday, July 17, 2003
Toral: First RP search engine came from Cebu
By JANETTE TORAL
DIGITAL FILIPINO
HISTORY. Last March, I embarked on a project with five men documenting 10 years of Philippine Internet history covering pre-1994 to the present. The Philippine Internet Review: 10 Years of the Internet (http://www.internetreview.ph) is a groundbreaking endeavor.
While working on it, I realized that the Internet had touched and changed us in a lot of ways. A lot of the tools we enjoy now can be attributed to it—from cheaper long distance phone calls to sending email from mobile phones.
Here are some of the interesting developments through the years.
Dr. William Torres proposed connecting to the Internet as early as 1992. He approached former Department of Science and Technology Secretary Ricardo Gloria, who later agreed to fund this initiative putting Dr. Rodolfo Villarica in charge. This led to the creation of PH-Net. Internet-based email was already available at this time.
1994. The Philippines gains full access to Internet services as PH-Net connects to SprintLink. The ceremony took place in University of San Carlos in Cebu City. Cyberbayan (http://www.cyberbayan.org) was the first Philippine website to go online that year. Portalinc and Moscom were the Internet service providers that offered commercial Internet service to the public.
1995. There are an estimated 10,000 Internet users at this time. The first Philippine search engine was G-Spot (now offline) of Cebu-based GSILink. The walk-in Internet café was first offered by MailStation Net.
1996. Filipinos were able to get their first taste of local e-commerce as Magoos(http://www.magoos.com) started selling pizza online. Four Internet magazines came out of the market, but they are now gone. Instant messaging became a big hit as users logged on to ICQ
(http://www.icq.com) and started exchanging messages virtually.
1997. The country’s premiere portal and last man standing, Yehey.com, went online. The Internet also became very much a part of the Filipino’s love life as couples began creating their personal wedding websites (http://come.to/1026Online is known to be the first).
1998. The country’s first Web awards (http://www.philippinewebawards.com) took place. Celebrities like Sharon Cuneta (http://www.sharoncuneta.com) launched their websites. PhilRadio (http://www.philradio.com) went online giving Philippine music and content to anyone who wanted to listen.
I’ll give you more trivia next week.
Knowing Philippine Inter-net history is very important so that the younger generation and future Internet users will realize how the early movers worked hard to allow us to enjoy the benefits we have today. Do your share in making the Internet a wonderful and productive place for all Filipinos.
If you have any personal Internet trivia to share, post it at the forums section of http://www.internetreview.ph and help build the country’s Internet history.
(Janette welcomes comments at janette@digitalfilipino.com.)
(July 17, 2003 issue)
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