From the latest edition of Vanity Fair, How the Web Was Won:
Sky Dayton founded EarthLink, an Internet-service provider, in 1994.Sky Dayton: I owned a couple of coffeehouses in L.A., and I had a computer-graphics company that I co-owned. And I heard about this thing called the Internet. I thought, That sounds kind of interesting. The first thing I did is I actually picked up the phone and dialed 411, and I said, I’d like the number for the Internet, please. And the operator is like, What? I said, Just search any company with the word Internet in the name. Blank. Nothing. I thought, Wow, this is interesting. What is this thing anyway?
I’m sure most geeks have their own stories about “where were you the first time someone was futureshocked.”
Mine involved an English class I had back in junior high — spring of 1994 taught by the volleyball coach Mrs. Gorby.
We were assigned one of those loathsome busywork projects and after class I asked the teacher if I could use some sites on the Internet for references.
She asked “What’s the Internet?”
I don’t remember what I turned in but I’ll never forget the quizzical look her face gave me. Priceless.
Note: fortunately for me my dad was an early adopter, having installed an ISDN line in the early ’90s so he could connect to the libraries at the University of Texas at Dallas just down the road. I have other stories like this as well. For instance, in 1996 I used the super cool and independent Hotmail (pre-Microsoft). When I told my friends my email address they all thought I was talking about hot males and porn. Classic. [P.S. Who doesn't love 5 MB storage limits?]