We are all patting ourselves on the back this week with our brand new site being launched, but truth be told, Kokopelli has a history of being on the cutting edge of internet technology.

Don't laugh, it's true!

 

We are all patting ourselves on the back this week with our brand new site being launched, but truth be told, Kokopelli has a history of being on the cutting edge of internet technology.

 

Don't laugh, it's true!

Waaaaaay back in 1998, Kokopelli Choir (it was singular in those days) launched a radical new thing called a website.  We tend to forget, living in 2010, how quickly things have changed in this area of technology, but for reference, let me remind you that the average person was just getting his or her very first email address around this time.  We were blessed to have a new member from Red Deer named Dave Mah Ming, who was really handy with a computer, and he generously created this site and even hosted it on a weirdly futuristic gadget called a server using some kind of continuous internet connection hooked into a cable internet service.  (We didn't pretend to understand it then, and I just barely grasp it now.)  As was the vogue at the time, Dave included a page on the site called the guestbook, where (it was assumed) actual visitors to the site would write things like "Nice site!  Great choir!"

But, Kokopelli being the sociable choir it is, the first entry was from another choir member, Erin Lange (now Lange-Elliott), cheering for Dave and his technological wizardry.  Following close on that entry's heels was another, from another Kokopelli member.  And another, and another, and another, and -- well.  You get the idea.  While occasionally, actual visitors did in fact make their way to the guestbook and post questions or comments, about 95% of the page was made up of a group of friends telling stories about their day, laughing about things that had happened at rehearsal, making announcements about upcoming concerts and parties...

If you're thinking, "Hmm, that sounds familiar," you are on the right track.  (Also: if you happen to know the person who goes by the alias "Deano", you'll recognize him pretty easily here.)  The Kokopelli guestbook was actually a very simple precursor to that concept we hear a lot about nowadays: social networking!

As spambots wormed their way deeper into the internet, we were forced to take preventative measures with a password.  Next came the increasing renown of the choir, and our decision to take some of the guestbook yammering indoors into the somewhat self-contradictorily named "internal guestbook".  And then, right around the beginning of 2007, Facebook appeared on the scene and the guestbook stopped working and no one bothered to check it anymore because it had outlived its usefulness.  It's sad, but lifespans on the internet are short, hard, and brutish (much like life in medieval times).  Still, as much as we can reminisce about something that never really existed at all, we sometimes pause and take a look at our humble internet roots: