In this podcast Kevin Jensen talks about creating one of the earliest rainbow websites originating from New Zealand. The website went live on 27 January 1996 and was for the Nelson-based Spectrum social and support group. The Internet Archive has a snapshot of the website from May 1997. There were other LGBTI rainbow websites being developed at the time (notably on nz.com) which can be found here.
Summary
This summary elaborates on a recorded interview by Gareth Watkins with Kevin Jensen at the Dowse Art Museum on the history of one of New Zealand's earliest LGBTQ+ websites. The podcast delves into the seminal years of the internet from a New Zealand perspective, particularly relating to the LGBTQ+ community, and covers the 1990s era, emphasizing how Spectrum, a Nelson-based social and support group for the LGBTQ+ community, made its early foray into the digital space.
In the mid-nineties, internet access, especially in areas like Nelson, was sparse and primarily facilitated through dial-up connections provided by companies such as Tasman Solutions. Kevin Jensen's association with Tasman Solutions led to a proposal for Spectrum to establish an online presence. Spectrum had been around since the early 1990s and played a pivotal role in the local gay and bisexual community of Nelson.
The online landscape for the LGBTQ+ community at the time was limited, with few New Zealand-based resources. Most LGBTQ+ content available online was international and significantly adult-oriented. Domestically, rudimentary listings of LGBTQ+ groups were available on nz.com, but the internet as a whole was still in its infancy, with content primarily text-based supplemented by images or diagrams. Before the advent of search engines like Google, finding relevant content was achieved through other engines like Yahoo or bulletin boards, which were described as primitive forums where individuals could share written content or images curated by the board's moderators.
One of the substantial motivations behind Spectrum seeking an internet presence was to offer support and information for people visiting or moving to Nelson, making the community more accessible and visible. When the Spectrum website went live in early 1996, it utilized a minimalistic approach due to bandwidth limitations of the era's internet, initially focusing on text before gradually expanding into more graphic content.
The podcast gives special attention to the technical aspects of internet usage and website creation from that period. Internet connections were made through phone lines, and browsing speeds were extremely slow by modern standards, complicating the process of viewing or downloading media. Websites were manually coded in HTML and updated individually via FTP programs. Learning and applying these skills was mostly self-taught, with support from the internet service provider, who also played a role in supporting community groups.
The Spectrum website's significance is underscored as being potentially among the first LGBTQ+ web presences in New Zealand, possibly even predating the New Zealand AIDS Foundation's online appearance. Early feedback on Spectrum's site was positive, and it succeeded in its mission to inform and welcome visitors to Nelson's LGBTQ+ community. Reflecting on the last two decades, the internet is credited with making the presence of the LGBTQ+ community more accessible and facilitating greater acceptance by breaking down societal barriers.
This summary is created using Generative AI. Although it is based on the recording's transcription, it may contain errors or omissions. Click here to learn more about how this summary was created.
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Tags
1990s, acceptance, access, accessibility, akiko international, alt.ssgm (alt same sex gay male), aotearoa new zealand, archives, bisexual, bulletin board, computer programming, computers, dial-up internet access, dowse art museum, gay, gay auckland business association (gaba), google.com, heterosexual, imagery, internet, internet archive, internet service provider (isp), kevin jensen, lower hutt, lycos.com, modem, nelson, nelson.planet.org.nz, new zealand aids foundation (nzaf), new zealand aids memorial quilt, newsletter, nz.com, pornography, social, spectrum (nelson), support, tasman solutions, website, windows 95, xtra.co.nz, yahoo.com