I started Eden Marketing in 1999, at the dawn of the internet. I had worked at Casa Nueva in the early nineties, as their Marketing Coordinator for several years, before being scooped up by Jorma Kaukonen’s Fur Peace Ranch (a rock and roll guitar school) as their Marketing Director, for several years thereafter. Eden Marketing’s official “full time” start date of Monday, September 10th, 2001.
If that date resonates with you, you’re not alone, we opened our business the day before 911. My very first meeting the next Tuesday was scheduled for 11am. I stayed up late working on the presentation.
I had Monday Night Football tuned into a 13″ portable color television using rabbit ears that my Mom bought in 1977, to connect to WSAZ out of Charleston, West Virginia. Home of Mr. Cartoon…
The Broncos we’re playing somebody… Denver WR Ed McCaffery broke his leg. Gruesome. I friggin’ hate the Broncos man. What they did to my Brownies is a pox. McCaffery seemed like a good man though. His son became a big NFL star.
Next to this old glow-box sat my 19″ box monitor, keyboard, lumpy Gateway computer, and me, typing out notes and ideas for the big day tomorrow. The night bore on into the most beautiful morning.
Then, we all watched the change. My client called late morning.“There’s something going on.”
“Yeah… I’m watching” I replied.
“I think we should… cancel.” I agreed. Pause.
“It’s pretty F&(#$d up” she sighed.
“Yeah… I’m watching” I replied.
“God Bless,” she said.
“God Bless,” I said. Click.
We all know what happened from there, and a truly surreal start to our company. We’ve all been handed a potential Utopia in the planet Earth. We continually miss the mark. We can do better, we should do better.
And the beat rolled on, and we all went through that together… the ups, the downs. Time passed, which soon gave way to an age of prosperity, not only for Eden, but obviously for the internet in general.
And Eden grew. We’ve experienced the birth of the internet. Dial-up giving way to broadband. Netscape, Internet Explorer and the Browser Wars. Yahoo!, AltaVista, Ask Jeeves and the early search engines.
The arrival—and eventual dominance—of Google. The Dot-Com Bubble and crash. Dreamweaver and the rise of visual website development. Flash, Shockwave and, yes, Flash Video. Web 2.0 and the shift from static to interactive websites. The rise of WordPress and content management systems. Friendster, MySpace, Facebook and the social media revolution.
YouTube and the explosion of online video. Google AdWords and the rise of search advertising. E-commerce becoming mainstream. The advent of the smartphone and the mobile Internet. Responsive web design and mobile-first development. The death of Flash. HTTPS, cybersecurity and online privacy becoming essential.
Google’s endless evolution: Panda, Penguin, RankBrain, Core Web Vitals and beyond. AI-powered search and the decline of the traditional “10 blue links”. Generative AI, ChatGPT and AI-assisted website development
WTF… Covid?!
And now, the beginning of whatever the AI era of the Internet is going to become. May God have mercy on us all…
I remember trying out the catch phrase “We’ve Seen It All” a few years back for Eden, but quickly abandon it as each and every single day, there’s something that comes across my desk that makes me pause and say “Well… I’ll be damned.”
It keeps us humble, and keeps us grateful for all who have contributed to 25 years of providing IT Solutions to good people with good intentions. God Bless.