Reply All: #3 We Know What You Did

December 3, 2014 7:43 PM

Twenty years ago, Ethan Zuckerman did something terrible on the internet. And he's still living with the consequences.

Reply All is a show about the internet. This episode discusses tripod.com, pop-up ads, and keeping the internet "Free"

posted by jazon (10 comments total)

OH MY GOD. I had no idea. It's hilarious that Ethan Zuckerman of all people was the guy that invented pop-up ads, he's such a cool Internet freedom fighter kind of guy today who has over a decade of great work behind him.

Hilarious to find out he was the pop-up guy.
posted by mathowie at 7:54 PM on December 3, 2014

And that he's such a cool internet freedom fighter type guy partially because of being the pop up ad guy.
posted by ocherdraco at 10:48 PM on December 3, 2014

Is he really to blame? Or the guy that invented javascript?

Also can someone please jog my memory and remind me where else I recently heard Zuckerman interviewed? I listen to so many damn podcasts it's hard to keep them straight. Kudos, however, for Reply All for making a really interesting show on a topic that I had already heard about recently.
posted by radioamy at 8:37 AM on December 4, 2014

Hey there pals. Thanks for posting this. Now that Matt has told me, I'll always be lurking in the reply all fanfare. If you have questions for us, let me know!
posted by Alex Goldman at 8:19 PM on December 4, 2014 [2 favorites]

Alex do you feel like you're stuck in a meta-loop? You've featured MeFi on your old show, and now MeFi is discussing your new show? I'm afraid you might break the internet.

Also congratulations on your success, glad to see you here.
posted by radioamy at 9:38 PM on December 4, 2014

It feels great! Metafilter feels like a basecamp of people that for the most part get what I'm trying to do. And I like hanging out here.
posted by Alex Goldman at 8:35 AM on December 5, 2014 [3 favorites]

Really likin' the show so far Alex.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 11:54 AM on December 8, 2014

Enjoyed this, but felt like one obvious (to me) thing got passed right over: If not Zuckerman, someone else. I'm sure some enterprising huckster would have come up with the idea eventually, and it probably wouldn't have taken long.
posted by that's candlepin at 12:22 PM on December 9, 2014

Yeah, I feel like once the browser supports opening new windows (which is not a given), using them for ads follows pretty naturally.
posted by smackfu at 6:38 AM on December 10, 2014

radioamy, I think it might have been Too Much Information with Benjamen Walker.
posted by ocherdraco at 8:16 AM on December 10, 2014