From MUD to the Metaverse

As someone who frequently writes about technology, I am amazed how far we have come in such a relatively short space of time.

Back in 1994, I was a super enthusiastic journalism student (is there any other kind? and, yes, I’m that old) combining my studies at Perth’s Curtin University with part-time work at Curtin’s legendary Grok newsmagazine.

One assignment still resonates today – and it wasn’t the feature about the graffiti on the back of the women’s toilet doors. I was asked to research an increasingly popular new computing innovation called the internet.

Internet gaming 90s style

All I knew about the internet at the time was picked up playing MUD after hours in the engineering department. MUD – standing for Multi-User Dungeon – was an adventure game loosely based on Dungeons & Dragons. No graphics, but there was one redeeming feature that made it fascinating to 1990s university students: you could communicate online to other users around the world. This is something we take for granted now, but back then was an absolute game-changer (pun intended). I named myself Strider after the Lord of the Rings character to avoid unwanted male attention online and delved into the MUD-averse. While details of the campaigns are hazy, I remember meeting a female gamer from California online who was also using a male name to detract attention, a harbinger of things to come.

Automation, chat-bots and more

Fast forward 28 years, and, after a very rewarding and enjoyable career as a newspaper journalist and magazine editor, I now run a freelance writing and editing company. Technology content has become an increasingly larger part of my business.

White-collar automation. Business software solutions. The emergence of the Metaverse. The rise and rise of e-commerce. Chat-bots and AI. The future of recruitment tech tools. Increasing consumer awareness about personal data monetisation. The growth of the Internet of Things (IoT).

These are just some of the topics I have written about in the past year, in blogs, thought-pieces and research papers. As a generalist whose role is to write about tech in a way that can be appreciated by a wide audience, what is striking is how developments in software and the internet impact on our everyday lives in 2022 in a way that could not possibly have been envisaged when that internet feature for Grok newsmagazine was published in 1994.

From how we work to how we shop, how we communicate to how we spend our leisure time, technology pervades almost every hour of our waking lives. It’s simultaneously fascinating and disconcerting, and I can’t wait to see what I will be writing about in another 10 years’ time.

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