Internet Time Ticks On At Swatch

from the the-esperanto-of-its-time dept

You may remember (though, you're no worse off if you don't) that a few years back, Swatch (the watch makers) announced that they were promoting the idea of "Internet Time", which would divide the day into 1000 "beats", with the first beat starting at midnight in the timezone of Swatch's headquarters in Switzerland. The idea was that, instead of having to deal with timezones, and such, we'd all just constantly be on Internet Time - the same time, throughout the world. As you probably have figured out, that didn't really catch on with too many people. However, it turns out that a few people believed strongly in the concept, and five years after it was announced, the folks at Swatch still suport Internet Time - and are still selling watches with Internet Time (all of which, conveniently, can switch over to regular time with the push of a button). Most of the other early adopters, though, have let that part of their lives move on, with one declaring that, "Internet Time was definitely the Esperanto of time."
Hide this

Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.

Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.

While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.

–The Techdirt Team


Reader Comments

Subscribe: RSS

View by: Time | Thread


  • identicon
    Dr_Stein, 14 May 2003 @ 3:31pm

    I remember that

    perhaps it wasn't such a bad idea. Might have kept me from being late a time or two ;)

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    dorpus, 14 May 2003 @ 5:34pm

    Stalin tried it

    He tried dividing the day into 10 hours, a year into 10 months, didn't work.

    Libya under Qadaffi has its alternative Islamic calendar in which they are a few hundred years ahead of other Muslim nations.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Tobias Robison, 15 May 2003 @ 7:22am

    Swatch has a Palm PDA clock program for this!

    You can dopwnload a 1,000 ticks a second clock for your palm pda at: http://www.swatch.com/alu_beat/index_section.php

    link to this | view in chronology ]


Follow Techdirt
Essential Reading
Techdirt Deals
Report this ad  |  Hide Techdirt ads
Techdirt Insider Discord

The latest chatter on the Techdirt Insider Discord channel...

Loading...
Recent Stories

This site, like most other sites on the web, uses cookies. For more information, see our privacy policy. Got it
Close

Email This

This feature is only available to registered users. Register or sign in to use it.