The Story of New Zealand's Internet

Transcription

Michael Gregg – Digital Ads Guy, @michaelgregg

“I had an an advertising agency starting in 1993. Prior to that I was a freelance marketing consultant so we were producing material and getting it printed out at 600dpi on our big flash printers, we spent 32 grand on a Mac, four grand for a printer, QuarkXPress NZ$4,200 and we would then print out stuff twice or four times the size or 300dpi, send it off to get bromides snapped on it or get the film shot for printing. In the early ‘90s we got the place cabled up and started this thing called ‘email’ and Internet came along and the Web and forums and groups. We started to be able to store our data and transfer it across so the big colour files that we used could be actually stored on disk, send the disks across or email images and get billboards or posters printed across town or across New Zealand which was cool. It freed up a whole lot of digital trade routes in New Zealand that meant that we didn’t have to pay money for couriers. We could get stuff done quicker. We could transfer something to Auckland, get an output so we didn’t have to send files and mock-ups. We would literally sit there with a bromide pen writing all over bromides and sending our ads off to publishers or the print publications. So what the Internet meant in the early days for me was actually that we were able to move away from bromide which was scary with all the chemicals and films etc, and move to digital processing which was quite radical. We started using a company called Colourcraft in Wellington which, at the time had invested some hundreds of thousands of dollars in technology and now you’d do it on a standard iMac and 24-inch screen and started to digitise the whole process. I was at the very end of what was around for 100 years and absolutely at the start of this new revolution.”