Internet Week New York is June 3-10. It seems like a nice idea, as I’m in favor of anything that promotes the city’s online culture, but something about the name “Internet Week” rings a little quaint. It sounds like something that would be put together in 1998 by an eager chamber of commerce executive who has only a passing familiarity with this whole Internet thing. Hooray! It’s Internet Week! Let’s all go to New York and do Internet together!

The newsletter sign-up page has the same feel. First, it asks you, “Are you interested in Internet Week NY as a professional, an internet-lover, or both?” I guess both, but I was a little embarrassed to self-identify as an internet-lover. “Yeah, I’m a big fan of the Internet. Not anything particular, just the Internet and Internetty-type stuff, et cetera. I guess you could say I’m a bit of an Internet buff.”

Then there’s the “Your company is a:” dropdown menu, which offers five ways to complete the sentence, each more vague than the last.

“Solutions Provider” reminds me of the commercials you’d see during golf tournaments¹ around 2000 or so. They’d talk about providing solutions for 30 seconds without telling you what the company actually did. Please tell me that term is not still in wide use.

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1. Yeah, I like to watch golf, what of it? ↑