A series of clicks this morning brought me to an interesting web finding in a Wiki-like Dead Media Archive that links to NYU’s Steinhart School of Media, Culture, and Communication.
Dead Media Archive, NYU Steinhardt School of Media, Culture and Communication
And there rests the Notificator, said (by me) to be Twitter’s great-great-great grandfather, with details:
On September 9, 1932, the London Times printed an article following up on a “correspondence in The Times proposing that British railway stations might, like those in Japan, provide facilities for messages from one person to another to be displayed.” An electrical engineer had written to the paper, agreeing, and noted a device that he had heard of; an “automatic machine…to be installed at stations and other suitable sites, and on the insertion of two pennies facilities were given for writing a message that remained in view for two hours after writing.”
The archive cites the August 1935 issue of Modern Mechanix & Inventions Magazine: “To aid persons who wish to make or cancel appointments or inform friends of the whereabouts… the new machine is installed in streets, stores, railroad stations or other public places where individuals may leave messages for friends… The machine is similar in appearance to a candy-vending device.”
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In case you’re interested, my starter source was today’s post on Get Better Health by Dr. Westby Fisher on the Pros and Cons of Social Media for doctors. There, a link in a list “you may also like these posts” drew my eye: Twitter First Conceived By British Hospital In 1935. That July, 2009 post by Berci of ScienceRoll, included an image of an unidentified old-appearing newspaper with an intriguing photo of a man with a hat pointing to a strange device with the word “Notificator” at its top.
A Google search of the headline, “Robot Messenger Displays Person-to-Person Notes in Public” led me to a 1935 Modern Mechanix issue (with the fabulous logo, “YESTERDAY’s Tomorrow TODAY”), some Russian blogs and, finally, the Dead Media Archive, based in principle if not in fact, somewhere near my home in Manhattan, 3 miles or so north of NYU.
This Web find is a good example of how social media and on-line reading can accelerate learning and finding new (and in this case old) ideas. And what goes around comes around –
The Dead Media Archive brims with interesting stuff, worth a virtual visit!
I may go check it out in person, sometime later, for real, if that’s possible -
connections…