I procured a VCR for the purpose of digitizing some of my old VHS tapes moldering away in a bedroom drawer. The VHS tapes filling my bureau drawers are almost all unmarked, but after getting the VCR in January I finally, after many years of intending to, started wading through them.
I knew this was in there, somewhere… or was it? I started to think I would never find this spot among the countless hours of tapes I accumulated. I even started to question if this ever actually happened.
I found it. I was on the NBC “TODAY” show on October 9, 1999. It was a nice spot, trivial in the bigger picture, but fun fact: This website received absolutely no increase in page views or visitors for being on the “TODAY” show. Nada. That differs markedly from the more recent spot featuring the Payphone Project on CBS Sunday Morning, which resulted in millions of page views.
But “TODAY” was fun, and fortunately I did not have to journey out to the Mojave Desert to be a part of it. My facetime took place at the former Time & Life Building, when I worked at Money.com (Some friends called me “Mark Money Thomas”). Hah.
Should I start posting to this website again? I don’t even know. Life changes, and taking on a full-time job has definitively cut into my time and energy left over to get back to slinging web pages.
I remain active as ProjectPayphone on Twitter/X and FLANEUR.NYC sends you to my YouTube channel, where I continue to document the never-ending decline of New York City payphones.
But web sites? Who visits these anymore? I read recently there are basically only 4 or 5 websites left. I know that was sarcastical but the point is not lost on me that niche sites don’t matter so much if they lack popularity, which has become cynically synonymous with authority.
I also just get tired of giving away original research and finding it scraped verbatim onto Reddit forums and other places, usually without zero or very obscure attribution.
Just moments ago I found an image of mine used by a very popular Pinterest account with zero attribution.
It’s all good. I’m not as cranky as this makes me sound. Enjoy the TODAY show spot. My principle satisfaction with this is having salvaged it from oblivion.