The first website I ever typed into a web browser back in 1997 was the website for the Nighthawks radio show which aired on WNWK 105.9. I can still remember getting on one of the two computers with dial up internet access at my high school library.
During those years, I spent many late Saturday nights and early Sunday mornings listening to 105.9 WNWK (based in Newark, NJ at that time). I heard the host of Nighthawks, Red Bandit, share his new website link week after week and eventually I visited it, the first time I’d use a web browser.
When my favorite station was purchased in 1998 and switched to a more profitable format, I was already spending more time exploring the version of the internet that existed at that time and navigating experiences in the real world during my first years of college.
My frame of reference for media, technology, community & commerce probably shaped by the ever changing FM airwaves in New York City. Post-Telecommunications Act of 1996, things started to change and by the early 2000s I was already a few years into communicating via digital spaces.
*This episode of Cousin of Gold features a few snippets of tapes I recorded from WNWK back in 97-98: Nighthawks Radio Intro, Flip Side Radio, Pinoy Wear promo
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