In 1994 onwards, the Internet was seen as having an increasingly influential potential for how chemistry may be handled, shared, stored and communicated, and how the Internet might have impacted upon the quality, reproducibility and re-use of both experimental observation and computational modelling for new scientific opportunities. Examples will be presented to illustrate from a personal viewpoint how the author carried out collaborative research in pre-Internet days, and how things have changed up to 2012. This will include a review of early attempts at electronic conferencing, examples of modern "datuments" as data-enriched interactive articles, the role of digital repositories and how environments such as blogs and Wikis can be used to promote collaborative new science.