2005: Time machine

Way back in 1996, I was involved in the development of Sony Malaysia’s first online ad campaign, and we ran online ads on Alta Vista-Skali. ’96 doesn’t seem so way back but that’s almost 10 years ago. Some time 96-97, I ran another online campaign – this time for Celcom on Yahoo. The first Yahoo online ad campaign from a Malaysian brand. Those early years were my first encounter in working on online campaigns.

I first discovered the Internet realm in the late 95-early 96, when I enrolled into a 2-day weekend HTML class in KDU. Even during those days, few brands and advertising agencies were involved in the internet realm. Corporate web sites were few and far between. Come to think of it, it was only in 1994 that Netscape first made it appearance and gained mass appeal only in the late 1995.

There were no visual HTML tools then, HTML codes were created with notepad and more advance options were sharewares like HotDog Pro.
Imagine, we were using 9.6 or 14.4kbps modems. 14.4 modems were a luxury item. The internet industry began to boom in the coming few years (but lets leave that for another chapter). Online chat was huge then, IRC, mIRC (ever heard of Tribal’s Powwow irc?) were our regular companions.

Time travel
The interactive multimedia was still at infant stage. If my memory serves me correctly, Cybertouch founded by Steve Hsia was the representative for Netscape in Malaysia. During those days they were still very much into selling app servers. Cybertouch soon became Delirium-Cybertouch and today known as Agenda Corporations.

IDM-BRG were among the new interactive firms in KL, which later merged with Cellnetwork (if I’m not mistaken were of Swedish origin) – today no longer in existence. Hisham Isa was CEO of Alam Teknokrat (today known as ‘Skali’), he has now moved on and is some where in Singapore, I think.

Ishsal of Neuroweb (then known as Neuronet), along with Malick Aboobakar were key drivers in the Internet realm and were heavily involved in the MSC. Poppe Tyson established their office here in Malaysia, and quickly gained recognition after being awarded the Astro web site project. Back then in 1998, Weng Keong of Arachnid first started to venture into the internet e-marketing space with work on Ford.
By mid 1999, the Internet space was at its all time high. During which time the industry were introduced to a whole influx of Interactive firms – from the likes of Stormquest, MIR, Mercatella, Webguru Asia, XM-Malaysia etc. They come and they go. How quickly things change in the industry. Only a handful of us can still reminisce the good times, and the changing times.

If you were to ask me, way back then, seating in the deemly lid corner of the Leo Burnett office, with my Windows 3.11 powered 16mb RAM Intel 386 PC , that I would some day become a ‘technopreneur’? The answer would probably be a ‘No’ or possibly a doubtful ‘Maybe… someday’. Honestly, technology is just too exciting, enriching and challenging not to be out here giving it a shot. And I am glad that I did.
Maybe some day, I’ll tell you about the story of how I got to where I am today. (Don’t you just hate blogs – you get old fuddies like me pouring out sketchy memories and experiences) Ta gt.

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