Monday, April 18, 2005

'Nowadays it's much harder to get noticed'

The Sydney Morning Herald's first website was designed in a Glebe boatshed, home to pesky pigeons and the office of Thomas Ashelford, who explains all to Des Devlin.
In 1995 the Herald launched its first internet site, the weekly Computers section. How did you become involved?
Ingrid Spielman and I had started a web design company called Ether which ran a music website called Wood and Wire. We were getting a lot of traffic, particularly from the US and, for some bizarre reason which I've never understood, Finland. We had received quite a bit of coverage in the Herald, where we were described as "Australia's first popular website" - so that created a lot of local interest in our site. ...
Back then your company would have been one of a handful working locally. Describe your operations.
We had a space in the old Blackwattle Studios - a massive boatshed at the end of Glebe Point Road which had been converted into artists' studios. It was actually very badly suited for anything involving computers, as the power was always blacking out, and there were pigeons that insisted on pooping on our computers.
Each desk had one of those huge super-soaker water pistols on it so you could shoot the pigeons to discourage them. It did have fantastic harbour views however."

Read the full article in the Sydney Morning Herald here.