The Significance of Telephone Networks

as Used for Broadcasting Original Content and Social Networking

Before the Internet and WWW

Karen NiemlaULM STUDENT RESEARCH SYMPOSIUM 2011

Wednesday May 4th 2011

Web 2.0, Web 1.0…

“Yes, you. You control the Information Age.

Welcome to your world.”

Usenet, Web 1.0, etc…

• “At its peak, Dial-A-Joke averaged 2,000 calls per day. It became the single most frequently called telephone number in the entire Bay Area, and on more than one occasion caused such switching snarls that the phone company asked him to shut it down”

Malone, Infinite Loop

TNT’s Pirates of Silicon Valley, 1999

TNT’s Pirates of Silicon Valley, 1999

$50 rent from the phone company

“We don’t care.We don’t have to.

We’re the Phone Company.”

NBC

VS

userEastBayAnt

Phone Pheaks

dialajoke.us

FLUKE

• “OK, This is PhunPhone production number 40 taped December 14th 1975 air January 5 1976 and it's take one. We hope...”

• “hot phones”• “we could get busted, that’s why

not”

• “OK, This is PhunPhone production number 40 taped December 14th 1975 air January 5 1976 and it's take one. We hope...”

• “hot phones”• “we could get busted, that’s why

not”

The “social” part

“Evan Doorbell,” 1970s

“Gwen sounds like a nice girl. I don't think I ever ended up meeting her. There was some talk about getting together the whole gang in Salisbury Park, but that required parental transportation units and I don't recall that I was able to acquire one.”

?

“Evan Doorbell,” 1970s

•Many of the persons involved are pseudonymous•Less than legal activity•Harder to interview

?

•Al Bernay •Or ,Al Diamond•Passed away in 2008•Extremely hard to interview

Works CitedBernay, Mark and Evan Doorbell. Phone Trips. Wideweb Communications, n.d. Web. 24 Apr. 2011. ‹http://www.wideweb.com/phonetrips/›.  

Doorbell, Evan. "Phreaks and Folks on Hempstead NY Vacant Code Conference, part 2 (June, 1971)." Phone Trips. Wideweb Communications, 4 Mar. 2005. Web. 24 Apr. 2011. ‹ftp://ftp.wideweb.com/GroupBell/5166L2HQ.zip›.  

Gibson, Ronald. Dial-A-Joke Telephone Entertainment Phone Recordings Jokeline Page. Batteryman's Bookmarks, 19 Jul. 2009. Web. 25 Apr. 2011. ‹http://www.dialajoke.us/›.

Gibson, Ronald. Dial-A-Joke Telephone Entertainment Phone Recordings Los Angeles Area & Beyond, Jokelines. Batteryman's Bookmarks, 28 Dec. 2010. Web. 25 Apr. 2011. ‹http://www.telephone-entertainment.com/›.

Gibson, Ronald. Phunfone Skits, Funfone Skits, Telephone Entertainment Recordings. Batteryman's Bookmarks, 19 Jul. 2009. Web. 26 Apr. 2011. ‹http://www.funfone.org/›.

Mack, Paul. Ronald Gibson. "Phone Parties." Dial-A-Joke Telephone Entertainment Phone Recordings Los Angeles Area & Beyond, Jokelines. Batteryman's Bookmarks, 16 Apr. 2005. Web. 25 Apr. 2011. ‹http://www.psend.com/users/paulmack/party/party.html›.

Malone, Michael S. Infinite Loop. New York: Currency Doubleday, 1999. 41-42. Print.

Works CitedSterling, Bruce. The Hacker Crackdown, Law and Disorder on the Electronic Frontier. 1992. Project Gutenberg. 19 Jun. 2008. Web. 25 Apr. 2011. ‹http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/101›.

Stu. “#41 Jeffy's Surprise Party.” Phunfone Skits, Funfone Skits, Telephone Entertainment Recordings. Batteryman's Bookmarks, 14 Dec. 1975. Web. 26 Apr. 2011. ‹http://www.funfone.org/ram/Phunfone-Jeffys_Surprise_Party.ram›.

Tedesco, Richard. "Playing in the big time." Broadcasting & Cable. 11 Dec 2000: 106. Web. EBSCOhost. Web. 27 Apr. 2011. ‹http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ufh&AN=3875036&site=ehost-live›.

Warnack, Anthony. "ComputerHistoryMuseum 069." EastBayAnt's Photostream. flickr.com, 10 Mar. 2006. Web. 29 Apr. 2011. ‹http://www.flickr.com/photos/awarnack/110798864/›.

Wilkinson, Gregg S, Edwin A. Mirand, Saxon Graham. “Can-Dial: An Experiment in Health Education and Cancer Control.” Public Health Reports, Vol. 91, No. 3 (1976). pp. 218-222. Web. JSTOR. 29 Apr. 2011. ‹http://www.jstor.org/stable/4595453›.          

Wozniak, Steve and Gina Smith. iWoz. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2006. 127-136. Print. "Timeline of Computer History, Networking." Exhbits. Computer History Museum, n.d. Web. 24 Apr. 2011. ‹http://www.computerhistory.org/timeline/?category=net›.