Mastodawn

RE: https://25.netribution.co.uk/nic/we-have-to-be-the-people-that-own-it-web-pioneer-cath-le-couteur-on-digital-utopias-closing-shooters-film-collectives-the-future/

I posted this video interview with Cath le Couteur a week ago on my #WordPress ActivityPub and it's not had any interest, so self-boosting…

She's especially fascinating because of this brief forgotten window in London in the 90s between CERN and Web 2.0 when the web's zeitgeist wasn't only female it was queer. First at the world's first web cafe - the women-run #Cyberia in Soho (https://www.vice.com/en/article/worlds-first-ever-cyber-cafe-cyberia-london/), then with Jess and Cath's #ShootingPeopole, which turned the ugly Mailman email digest into a slick, daily human-moderated early prototype of a social media feed. They launched a paid tier (when I started working for them) and NYC branch, peaked at 40k filmmaker/writer/animator/docmaker/crew/actor members - ran 27-years, Cath turned down all advances to sell the database, and shut it down last year, not from bankruptcy but wanting to move on.

I'm sure she'd be better known if she was a bloke or profit-hungry, still I really enjoyed the chat; a first for me to post the video of it.

Nicol Wistreich Feb 3

Web pioneer Cath Le Couteur on digital utopias, closing Shooting People, film collectives & the future.

> "I'm not an anti-tech person. Shooters was built on technology. But I am mindful that we want technology that doesn't extract, technology that enables people." Long before social networks and smart phones in the mid-90s, Cath entered the world's first cyber-cafe in Soho, London to message a cyber-girlfriend in Australia. There she met Cyberia's founder Eva Pascoe, and joined the woman-owned company that shaped the early-90s UK web-scene. Next she went to BBC Online, still a quirky start-up at the BBC figuring out How To Internet, befriended the late Jess Search who started producing her films. Using London Filmmakers Coop to borrow their kit they have a Big Idea – what if the film coop culture of filmmakers helping each other, met the Usenet lists, forums and chat-rooms Cath encountered at Cyberia? So together they founded Shooting People in 1998, a daily email bulletin running on GNU Mailman. It began with 60 email addresses and grew…

https://25.netribution.co.uk/nic/cath-le-couteur-on-digital-utopias-closing-shooting-people-film-collectives-the-future/

Stefan Bohacek Nov 26, 2024

"Virtually the second we opened, we had three lines deep around the block. [...] If you wanted to collect your emails, we were the only place in town."

https://www.vice.com/en/article/worlds-first-ever-cyber-cafe-cyberia-london/

#internet #TheWeb #history #InternetCafe #cyberia