Before the LOL - a history lesson with laughs

So I stumble across a link to the video of this great talk from ROFLcon. The talk is entitled before the LOL and is a quick history of the history of sub-channel communications. What I mean by that is the guy, the talking guy tells us all about how people have found inventive ways to use communications technology from the telegraph to the early days of the web. He talks about the development of languages and codes which have become ubiquitous. Ever wondered who first came up with the smiley emoticon? He is named and shamed (well maybe not shamed so much as lauded but…) here.

Of course one of the cutest things was when I found out who the guy giving the talk was. It is the guy behind the textfiles website, which is a fantastic archive of some of the early BBS communications and apart from a great historical resource can be a hilarious read.

But watch the talk if you get a moment. It is a very interesting look at people’s needs to communicate in their own way.