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Does anyone remember websites?

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Re: Does anyone remember websites?

#211

Post by TeMPOraL »

pier25 wrote: post #56
KGIII wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Browsing vs. searching. We don't seem to do much browsing anymore. We search and selectively pick what we consume. It's faster but, as you say, I don't think it is as fun. I used to enjoy picking a subject and then clicking all the DMOZ or Yahoo! links. I'd dig through webrings and and link aggregators with wild abandon. Now, I search a term and click on the first few results, at most. Sure, there are exceptions but…

I'd go further and say: browsing vs scrolling. I remember 10+ years ago we designed websites so that important content was "above the fold". Today people are addicted to scrolling their Facebook feed.

Sites that cared about "above the fold" were part of the problem, not part of the solution. The primary reason one would be actively interested in putting content "above the fold" was if one wanted to "capture audience", which is generally not the first thing on the mind of a person posting deep information as a labour of love.

Re: Does anyone remember websites?

#212

Post by indubitable »

JohnBooty wrote: post #121
inetknght wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Useful? I would argue that it's actually a lot less useful today.

I think the Internet's gotten worse in general (and, specifically, less useful) over the last decade except for one thing: YouTube is insanely useful for learning how to do basic household stuff, minor car repairs, that kind of thing. Insane. Mundane? Yeah, but life is like at least 50% handling mundane shit like that. Maybe 90%. Maybe 95%? Want to know how to repair some brick stairs in front of your house? Sharpen…

YouTube is also incredible for educational stuff. There's very pop science, pop science, hard science, and then things like hundreds of lectures from Leonard Susskind on everything from classical mechanics to the latest happenings in string theory/m-theory.

Phenomenal stuff, but it seems like the things that most places (universities in particular) are still holding out on are things like problem sets. Hard to know how little you know until you have materials challenging your depth of understanding. Watching a lecture without doing associated problems is like trying to learn to play basketball without touching a basketball.

Re: Does anyone remember websites?

#213

Post by Illniyar »

"it was largely a collection of websites made by people who were interested in some subject enough to write about it and put it online. "

Oh,you mean like blogs?

Seriously, this sounds like being nostalgic for it's own sake. I fail to see how using dreamweaver and ftp is somehow better then using Wordpress and the cloud, writing your own html as a prerequisite to having a website was never a good idea - now everyone can have their own website.

I really don't miss the "glorious 90's" type of websites - with the thousand of animated images, weird background images and marquee everywhere. Sure it made every site unique - every site was terrible to the eyes in it's own special way.

Also the idea that all sites now look the same is quite preposterous - sure a lot of sites are cookiecutter websites - especially marketing websites, but there are tons of unique designs - especially for blogs and personal websites.

Re: Does anyone remember websites?

#214

Post by sgt »

qznc wrote: post #34

They are still out there. Probably even more than ever. You just don't find them because the SEO-sites drain away all traffic. I believe my own site would qualify? http://beza1e1.tuxen.de/

That would be interesting - a search engine that was resistant to most SEO techniques and allowed one to find these types of sites. Would be a great alternative to Google sometimes.

Re: Does anyone remember websites?

#216

Post by maxhallinan »

ambrosite wrote: post #30

I do remember those websites. For me, the difference is that now the Web is much more useful, but back then it was a lot more fun. True, you could sometimes waste hours following random links hoping to find something good, but the thrill of discovery when you stumbled across a gold mine of information was a huge part of the appeal. Nowadays, anyone with a basic understanding of search engines can find almost anything…

>Nowadays, anyone with a basic understanding of search engines can find almost anything they want within seconds.

But now I'm less likely to find stuff that I didn't know existed and don't quite have a name for. This kind of stuff was/is usually discovered by following hyperlinks. But I'm not sure why I have this experience less often.

Re: Does anyone remember websites?

#217

Post by hawski »

dogcow wrote: post #167

Check out the search engine at http://wiby.me From their about page: Search engines like Google are indispensable, able to find answers to all of your technical questions; but along the way, the fun of web surfing was lost. In the early days of the web, pages were made primarily by hobbyists, academics, and computer savvy people about subjects they were interested in. Later on, the web became saturated with commercia…

I started to work on something like it. With intention of filtering-out ad-serving websites first (thanks to EasyList filtering rules) and heavy-JS second. I'm glad that someone already did something like this.

Is there some more information about it? I found that it is done by https://www.wireservice.ca Is there a technical info?

I was wondering how big the index is. Because it may be just possible to serve the multi-gigabyte index with torrent. Then the update mechanism would serve only deltas. It could be then used locally. However index would probably have to be without content - so no snippets. I don't know if it would be useful that way.

It could use a comparison site. Side by side with Google for the same search. I would certainly want to use it this way for a while.

I think this is the way for the alternative search engine to somewhat succeed. Because I think it's almost impossible to compete with Google at being Google. Look at how Bing manages.

Re: Does anyone remember websites?

#218

Post by fphilipe »

Illniyar wrote: post #213

"it was largely a collection of websites made by people who were interested in some subject enough to write about it and put it online. " Oh,you mean like blogs? Seriously, this sounds like being nostalgic for it's own sake. I fail to see how using dreamweaver and ftp is somehow better then using Wordpress and the cloud, writing your own html as a prerequisite to having a website was never a good idea - now everyone…

> Oh,you mean like blogs?

Yes, but before they all looked the same and were hosted on the same platform.

I miss the days where you would encounter a blog filled with great content and with a unique look and feel. It's as if it almost burned in in my memory. I still remember how the website looked of some great articles that resonated with me.

That's one of the reasons I dislike Medium et al.

Re: Does anyone remember websites?

#219

Post by hawski »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #201
rb666 wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hit "Surprise me" and first site it hits autodownloads a .mid file, that used to work better I 'member.

I hit "Surprise me" and got this gem: http://g2mil.com . I like that search site already.

Great quote from this one:

> What someone doesn't want you to publish is journalism, all else is publicity.

> Paul Fussell

Re: Does anyone remember websites?

#220

Post by leeoniya »

dogcow wrote: post #167

Check out the search engine at http://wiby.me From their about page: Search engines like Google are indispensable, able to find answers to all of your technical questions; but along the way, the fun of web surfing was lost. In the early days of the web, pages were made primarily by hobbyists, academics, and computer savvy people about subjects they were interested in. Later on, the web became saturated with commercia…

uh huh...

https://wiby.me/?q=hamster

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