BPN 1746: Launch Digital City Amsterdam 25 years ago

Today it is 25 years ago that the Digital City Amsterdam was launched. Digital City Amsterdam was a historic project as it meant a breakthrough for internet in The Netherlands, but also an example of a virtual community. 

Breakthrough
By 1993 technical access to Internet was available in the Netherlands. Three ISPs (NLnet, XS4ALL and Knoware) delivered the technical access mostly to companies, but did not offer any other services. They invested hardly any effort in marketing and promotion as most clients found their way to the companies/foundations. This changed drastically in 1994 when the De Digitale Stad (DDS) came online. This foundation was an initiative of De Balie, XS4ALL and was set up in order to form a discussion platform for six weeks for the upcoming municipal elections. It was a success from the start, partly because a visitor got a free e-mail address and free access to other textual information. So far internet visitors had to fiddle a lot with their PC settings in order get contact with the host. But through DDS internet could be reached via a dial-in connection and through public terminals at the City Hall and the debatting centre De Balie.


'Mayor' Marleen Stikker cuts the cake in celebration of the first year anniversary

The site
DDS was heavily promoted in the media as well as with citizens and in institutes like old folks homes by the virtual mayor of the digital city, Marleen Stikker. Once DDS was on its way, it got support to continue from the municipality of Amsterdam, grants from the ministry of Economic Affairs and the ministry of Internal Affairs and sponsorship deals. But after a year free access to Internet DDS had to close this facility. In one year DDS attracted 10.000 subscribers and by 1997 DDS had 50.000 subscribers.




The development of the interface from a first not executed design of the digitalcity (top), the first textual screen (middle) and the first graphical screen (under)
 
The first version of DDS was a textual interface. But this changed, when on October 15, 1994 the world wide web interface was introduced. This was a bold graphic interface, which brought out the virtual city elements such as squares and buildings as well as homes. By 1997 around 6500 subscribers had an own home, of whom 1500 inhabitants had their own front door. Besides visitors, DDS also had inhabitants, who could build their own house for free with 5Mb; they also received an e-mail address for sending mails in and outside the virtual city. Inhabitants could also accept another fantasy identity, but this could always be checked. They could also see where other people were in the city and talk to them, while in cafes they could chat with each other.


The Sports Square (left) and De Baarsjes neighbourhood with houses in the middle (right)
 
By the end of the millennium DDS did have trouble to cover debts and the board decided to change the foundation into a limited company. DDS became part of the commercial ISPs. This transition solicited a lot of emotions from inhabitants and led to a schism, named the only genuine digital city (DeDS).


A map of the Netherlands with digital regions, digital cities and villages

Digital cities
DDS was the first digital city in the Netherlands. But soon digital regions, cities and villages popped up like mushrooms and usually died as fast as they came up. In 1986 Wegener and later on VNU Newspapers launched City Online, a project designed by Maurice de Hond. The format looked similar to that of Digital City Amsterdam, complete with houses for inhabitants. It was an expensive project, which was dependent on the goodwill of the editor-in-chief of the printed newspaper in the city or region. City Online never really took off and by January 1, 1988 the project was over. Presently regional newspapers still experiment with digital cities, villages and regions e.g. 010 in Rotterdam andDichtbij (Near) in Enschede.

Web archeology project

An archive of Digital City Amsterdam was created, when the foundation changed into a limited company. But in 2016 the web archeology project, RE: DDS, was set up by De Waag, a foundation operating at the intersection of science, technology and arts, Amsterdam Museum, the Free University and the University of Amsterdam. The recovered digital devices, magnetic tapes and CDs and were able to emulate software even to a presentation level. One of the results of the RE: DDS project was the FREEZE! manifest.


Celebration 
Ther will be a celebration in Amsterdamat the Public Library. The former virtual mayor will speak and address the pressure on the public character of the internet: "Internet companies enter the public space of the city and also put the public character of the Internet under pressure. The digital public space that we saw before us 25 years ago is now a 'market place', where power is centralized in a handful of large companies with a data hunger that seems unstoppable. Can the mores of these companies be combined with the values of our society? And who actually determines the rules, now that online and offline are becoming increasingly interwoven?"

BPN 1675: 2014: already a memorable year

The new year has only just begun. Yet, for me 2014 is already a year to remember. It is 20 years since the Internet for consumers made ​​her entry in the Netherlands. On January 15, 1994 the ISP launched The Digital City ( DDS ) in Amsterdam.

The Digital City ( DDS ) started on Saturday January 15, 1994 with an television interview in the eight o'clock news. DDS was an internet project, intended as a discussion forum in the run up to the municipal elections of March 1994. The project was designed by netactivisten (Hack -Tic), the municipality and partly inspired by Marleen Stikker, the virtual mayor of the city. The town was based on community networks ( free nets) in the U.S. and Canada. The model of the city was chosen as a metaphor.

First DDS interface text without graphics (DDS Archief)

DDS Interface 3.0 DDS Archief)

 

DDS was a great success. In six weeks, 10,000 people applied for access to the city. By visiting the virtual mayor of organizations, but also to institutions, the project received much local attention, as the mayor visited organisations and institutions. And it were not only people coming from Amsterdam, but also people from across the Netherlands. After the project DDS went on as an Internet service provider. DDS actually opened the doors for Internet consumers by January 1994 and by January 1, 1997 the Netherlands  had registered 1 million internet consumers.

The success of DDS was surprising. There used to be an online and multimedia industry in the Netherlands. Online databases such as Kluwer Legal Database were used for scientific, technical and business research. Electronic messaging services like Memocom were separate, mainly business services. For consumers, there was the information service Viditel, followed by Videotex Netherlands. And for amateurs, there were the Bulletin Board Systems ( BBS ). Furthermore, there was there a beginning of a multimedia industry with text CD-ROMs, multimedia CD- ROMs and CD -i titles as well as a few electronic books. But this industry was only 100 million guilders ( 45 million euros) great in revenues and the consumer share was very low.

Internet, however, developed separately from this industry, mainly through the academic network SURF. As of 1990 there were ISPs and by the end of 1993 there were approximately 295 companies connected to the Internet. In May 1993, XS4ALL opened an Internet service to consumers. Although in the first two days, 500 consumers were registered, the number of subscribers grew slowly. DDS, however, was the driver and was a resounding success.

In retrospect, a number of factors accounted for this consumer success.

a. The number of households with a PC in the Netherlands had increased from 7 percent in 1985 to 34 percent in 1994.
b. People wanted to do more with the PC than gaming, word processing, accounting and consult encyclopedias on CD - ROM.
c. Internet came as a disruptive technology. Existing online and multimedia technologies had to adapt or eventually disappeared, eg videotex and CD-i. Out of the concrete mixer containing different technologies, eventually only Internet and email survived. Teletext and CD - OM stayed on, but played no important part anymore.

 

 d. Consumer internet was cheap compared to online databases. Moreover, the Internet technology was user-friendly thanks to hypertext, had more graphic opportunity and had greater potency multimedia ( text, image, video and sound). Besides, Internet combined with email.

e. Internet did not developed within the existing online and multimedia industry, but within the bosom of universities and scientific institutions. Companies that had internet installed proved attractive to students after completion of their academic studies.

For those interested, Reinder Rustema wrote a doctoral thesis on the Digital City in 2001.

BPN 1634: Twenty years internet access for Dutch consumers

It is not clear who the first Dutch supplier of Internet access for consumers was. In 1992 there were only 239 companies users of the internet systems of service providers (ISPs) such as XS4ALL, NLnet, Knoware and IAE. For example, a company would pay for a subscription 100 guilders  (45.50 euros) to XS4ALL. The number of companies connected to the Internet was not large, because the internet online system was only known by small group of entrepreneurs, mostly university graduates. Entrepreneurs outside this group did not have any idea of ​​the Internet and were linked to other systems such as Videotex Netherlands, ASCII databases and email systems as Low Cost Linking.

The  ISPs were really yet interested in consumers. The ISPs did not have the marketing machines and helpdesks. If a consumer accidentally wandered by and wanted to have a subscription, h/she would get it, but without a manual. All that started to change in 1992.

XS4ALL arose from the organization Hack-Tic, a group of people that exchanged hackers tricks, tips and files with each other. The organization initially made use of the facilities of the University of Amsterdam. But the university stopped the group from using its computernetwork. So that was the time Hac-Tic started  the foundation XS4ALL.

From 1992 XS4ALL started to accept members of the Hobby Computer Club (HCC) besides companies. And early 1993 the management decided to accept consumers. So 20 years ago on May 1, 1993 XS4ALL started to offer consumers access to its servers for 30 Dutch guilders (roughly 13 euro) a month . XS4ALL was the first ISP who started to take consumers seriously. They management predicted that  50 subscribers would sign on the first day. By the evening of May 2nd, 1993 at 19.00h the ISP had registered 500 consumers. There was clearly a need for internet among consumers. The first wave of consumer subscribers might have been helped by an article about internet, which was published in the Dutch national morning daily De Volkskrant that day.

From May 1, 1993 the number of subscriptions to Internet for consumers increased steadily, but not by the hundreds. Until later in the year XS4ALL started to collaborate with the political and cultural centre De Balie in the project and the Digital City in Amsterdam. The project had been devised to promote the municipal elections in the spring of 1994. Apart from the local television, radio and print media, the Digital City would be part of the public debate. On Monday, January 17th 1994 the Digital City opened its doors. This project caught the fascination of  many of the  national media wonder and as a side effect  it generated a lot of publicity for internet. In 1994 alone this project generated eight television and radio fragments, starting with an interview with Frank de Grave and the mayor of the Digital City Marleen Stikker in the 8 o'clock news on January 15, 1994 according to the database of Sound and Vision. After six weeks the project had tallied up more than ten thousand registered users.

In 1996 the foundation created a company, which was sold to the incumbent telecom operator KPN in 1998. However XS4ALL remained independent as a subsidiary and now offers various internet access services such as ADSL, SDSL and fibre and via KPN information and entertainment packs.

Picnic goes social green

PICNIC ’07 has announced the Picnic Green Challenge. The competition is dotted with a 0,5 million euro; money from the National Zipcode Lottery. The Green Challenge is another branch of the social dimension of the PICNIC ’07 conference and exhibition in Amsterdam, from September 25-29, 2007.

Last year Picnic was held for the first time. Funded by the ministry of Economic Affairs and the municipality of Amsterdam, Ms Marleen Stikker managing director of De Waag Society in Amsterdam and Bas Verhart, managing director of Media Republic set up a program with the stress on social creativity. The conference and exhibition uses internet itself as a social network for last year’s and this year’s participants. They can put their profile on the website, complete with photograph.

This year a new social dimension has been added: the Picnic Green Challenge. The competition should show new media solutions for the environment. People from the creative industry have a task in selling green products and solutions. The creative producers can add the lifestyle factor. In an article in the Dutch financial FD of yesterday he mentioned examples like Organic, Food for You, an organic food shop and Bugaboo, a manufacturer of children’s buggies and of course the coffee chain Starbucks.

I remember a green challenge which was among the nominations of the 2004 edition of the Eurorpix Top Talent Award, a competition for young talent, students and producers under 30 years. A student from Staffordshire University, Christina Handford developed the Green Scheme, an incentive scheme for a recycling project. The jury report reads: The Green Scheme uses interactive TV to offer the public a crucial requirement: motivation. The Green Scheme allows the citizen to view how many points he/she have received from recycling tins, cans, bottles etc. The participants can use the points to reduce their tax bill, or donate them to local schools to buy sports equipment. It makes recycling a clear and transparent duty. The Green Scheme emphasises how recycling is both efficient and cost-effective for the individual, while also being beneficial for the community at large. The Green Scheme localises the efforts to reduce pollution and save resources. This would make the public feel that they have the individual responsibility and tools to recycle, rather than thinking recycling can be postponed for now, or be done by someone else. The Green Scheme facilitates the civic duty to protect the environment and serve the local community, surprisingly by sitting in front of a television set. The Green Scheme should be amongst the entries for the Green Challenge and a large city should pick up the idea.

For those who have still such a fabulous idea on their desk, they should hurry. There are only 8 days left. Chairman of the jury will be Richard Branson. And prize money will be 500.000 euro. With a jury support by amongst Richard Branson, but also other enterprise dons and half a million euro, an idea should be able to be put in practice.

Blog Posting Number: 844

Tags: social network, creative industry, digital social creativity