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Anyone remember those immensely popular websites that have gone into the oblivion or in some instances are now nearly dead? Here's just my short list of Internet memory lane:
Yahoo! - Obvious, was once one of the mightiest search engines out there. Full of ads as I recall and they regarded themselves as a marketing company and not tech company. Surprised it is still very big in Japan, especially for auctioning items and the like....Always wondered about a what if situation to be honest if they were able to grow into what google is currently doing...
Friendster - Before facebook and myspace there was Friendster, once quite popular but Internet penetration is nowhere near what it is today and smartphones weren't around to catalyse growth. Shot down by facebook effectively...Their pages were highly editable...
Geocities - Hah personal web pages were the fad back then...mainly hosting personal websites...Probably again facebook killed it...
ICQ - Messaging app that never really transitioned into the smartphone age and probably was killed off by msn and then facebook/whatsapp later..
There are about 1B active websites now, so naturally some old ones died didn't keep up with the evolution.
Thankfully there is an Internet Wayback Machine where you can not only view websites that don't exist anymore, you can also view Web pages at particular points in history. https://archive.org/web/
You can even play Ms-DOS games there. What a wonderful way to kill time
Tetris - yay!!!!! https://archive.org/details/software...msdos_games/v2
GeoCities made it possible for any dummy to make a website about anything–as such, the design elements of these sites were notoriously lacking. When you go to GeoCities’ homepage now, you get the message, "The GeoCities service is no longer available, but there's a lot more to explore on Yahoo!"
Friendster closed just 6 months ago, as they say: just temporarily.
Altavista - I actually liked that search engine.
Napster was cool.
ICQ is still popular in Europe, and I still have my account. Their peak glory was in the early 2000's
Yahoo! - Obvious, was once one of the mightiest search engines out there.
Yahoo started out as directory and still provides that service. On the search end they were using Google as a search engine with Yahoo branded results for a while. Websites that have tried to be too many things have always had difficulties.
Ten to 15 years ago there were a number of websites that catered to the so-called gay "bear" community. Yeah a lot of them were more/less dating and/or hook-up websites and yes many if not all of them did allow nudity ( one reason why I can't mention the names of those sites on here ) but they were popular among that crowd. Facebook and the phone app Growlr both have since took away a LOT of business from those websites ( some have even shut down ) even if those two don't allow nudity, at least publicly anyway.
Anyone remember those immensely popular websites that have gone into the oblivion or in some instances are now nearly dead? Here's just my short list of Internet memory lane:
Yahoo! - Obvious, was once one of the mightiest search engines out there. Full of ads as I recall and they regarded themselves as a marketing company and not tech company. Surprised it is still very big in Japan, especially for auctioning items and the like....Always wondered about a what if situation to be honest if they were able to grow into what google is currently doing...
Friendster - Before facebook and myspace there was Friendster, once quite popular but Internet penetration is nowhere near what it is today and smartphones weren't around to catalyse growth. Shot down by facebook effectively...Their pages were highly editable...
Geocities - Hah personal web pages were the fad back then...mainly hosting personal websites...Probably again facebook killed it...
ICQ - Messaging app that never really transitioned into the smartphone age and probably was killed off by msn and then facebook/whatsapp later..
I loved Geocities. In fact, I miss the idea of people creating their own websites. Facebook did kill this, and it's unfortunate. It's so much easier to just open a FB account, since it provides messaging (instant or not), a way for you to share pictures, posts, and links. And, the fact that you can communicate with others in your friend's list. At the same time, what it doesn't allow is for people to completely customize their pages, kind of like what MySpace did right before it bit the dust. To me, that would be the only reason to want to create your own website - well that and if you're a business. If Facebook could add that functionality, then I think that would be wonderful!
Friendster never caught on with me. In fact, I didn't even know (or hear) about it until I became more active on Facebook. By that point, Friendster was probably all but dead. You might want to include MySpace in the topic. It was pretty popular for a short period of time. While I loved the idea of being able to completely customize your page, add music, etc....people took the customization to the extreme. Some people's page got so slow (with all the animated crap on it) that I couldn't even get on their page. Still, that would be the one thing I think Facebook might need to allow for its users. Modest options to have your webpage completely customized so it feels more like your home as opposed to an "apartment" you're renting!
And yes, Yahoo! I spent the majority of my time on Yahoo, searching its directory. I never really considered it a search engine site. It had a search engine on it, but it was really known more for its directory, which you could spend hours searching. This was the best way to stumble across some cool, "homemade" websites for people's families and college groups. You could also find just about any business you needed. It was actually an awesome idea! It was like searching through the yellow pages of the phone book than it was a search engine. I haven't used Yahoo in years though.
Yahoo is still a giant. They have had some ups and downs lately, but I read the news there everyday, and they have far more than just news. They are still huge.
I remember Friendster. I remember geocities. I think I created a geocities account long ago. Every now and then I come up to an old article that still links to a geocities address, which obviously doesn't work any more. I heard MySpace was rebranded as a music or media site. I wonder if it's still active.
MySpace is still active, and it looks like a Spotify rip-off now. When it was relaunched, I went back and created a new account (had deleted my old account when it was still the old MySpace.) I actually liked the layout and had hoped it would take off again. Now, they have changed it up again, and like I said, it's a Spotify rip-off. It's strictly for music discovery. I would rather use Spotify or Pandora than what's on there.
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