Today in Technology History
An event that occurred on this date in the history of technology.
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June 24
The first known live musical performance on the Internet took place exactly one decade ago.
The Internet was originally a tool for academics and the military. But by the early 1990s, as many more people got computers and modems, the Internet started to heat up. The World Wide Web was invented and went active in 1991, and millions of people started to move online.
In the midst of this exciting period of growth, a musical group called "Severe Tire Damage" made the first online live musical performance on June 24, 1993, on the patio of Xerox's Palo Alto Research Center in California. The audio and video of their performance was transmitted on the Internet's Multicast Backbone (MBONE).
(Today, almost no one uses MBONE. Newer technologies, such as the software for RealPlayer and Windows Media Player, are widely used to get streaming video and sound across the Internet, both live and delayed.)
In 1994, the Rolling Stones had a performance that went live on the Internet -- becoming the first big-name band to play live online. This time, Severe Tire Damage, without the Stones' permission, used the MBONE to perform some songs preceding and following the Stones' concert. Described in the press as a "renegade band" who "electronically crash[ed] the party," Severe Tire Damage took credit for being the first musical group in history to perform a warm-up set in a different city than the headliner band. Somewhat peeved, the Rolling Stones soon described their computer-savvy competitors as "furry Palo Alto Geeks."
Today, of course, music on the Internet is big business, and not just the province of geeks, furry or otherwise.
Related links:
The homepage of the band Severe Tire Damage includes a history section that gives some background on their early Internet performances.
The first movie on the Internet also appeared in 1993.
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