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Pizza Hut’s First Website

pizzahut.com

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Re: Pizza Hut’s First Website

#141

Post by jedimastert »

coldpie wrote: post #84
macintux wrote: post #68

At my university, someone did a demo of what ordering a pizza would look like online, using Pizza Hut's site as an example, sometime in 1994-95. I remember thinking to myself that was a ridiculous idea, because all of the stores would have to be wired up to the Internet, and who would do that? That ignored, of course, the possibility that a central location could take the orders and communicate them to the individual…

> That ignored, of course, the possibility that a central location could take the orders and communicate them to the individual stores (which is how it worked for phone ordering at one point, maybe even today) Wait, really? I worked in several pizza restaurants around the early 2000s and we always took the phone calls directly. It was very common to get questions about stuff like directions and opening hours, or weir…

It's actually true of Pizza Hut right now. I had to call in an order because the online form didn't have the option I wanted, and the operator on the other end definitely wasn't even in the same state I was.

I agree though, it was very surprising.

Re: Pizza Hut’s First Website

#142

Post by jacurtis »

jeffwass wrote: post #33
tgtweak wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amusingly, the date on this article and the fact it still loads today. https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1994-08-25-fi-31168-...

Wow, very prescient amazing article! Quote near beginning to put things in context of where we were back in 1994 : “ To participate in the pilot, hungry Santa Cruzers need computers with Internet access and a version of an Internet interface program called Mosaic .” But other interesting predictions: “Instead of simply letting people order a pizza, why not let them design it as well? Instead of showing an ordinary me…

The article made largely accurate predictions of the future (now-present), except for one fatal assumption:

"Surely, a lot of those people would be prepared to pay a little premium to custom-design their own pizza [with the visual pizza builder online]."

No, users will NOT pay extra to custom design a pizza online. They will simply expect it.

Re: Pizza Hut’s First Website

#143

Post by rkuykendall-com »

toast0 wrote: post #136
mchaver wrote: post #48

Let's collect all the internet's historical pizza moments. I've collected a few from the comments here and added a few. - 1990, Don Hopkins uses the PizzaTool to fax a pizza order. - 1992, Snow Crash is published. Readers imagine interconnected virtual worlds and action packed pizza delivery. Often quoted book in regards to internet, MMORPGs and pizza. - 1994, Pizza Hut's Pizza Net allows users in Santa Cruz to order…

1999, i-Opener internet appliance released with pizza key on keyboard. https://www.salon.com/2000/07/12/i_opener/

2 Photos: https://www.reddit.com/r/MechanicalKeyboards/comments/28dfsj...

Re: Pizza Hut’s First Website

#146

Post by qplex »

genidoi wrote: post #44
axaxs wrote: post #26

In a way, I miss the naive old web. Now you get popups, requests to have your location, prompts to sign in before you can get deals, etc. In many ways a simple web form asking for pizza is a better user experience.

Imo, whatever annoying tradeoffs a commercialized web brought with it, it was wholly worth it for giving literally anybody the ability to learn anything they are curious about. 1080p Harvard compsci lectures[0] available for free would have been a pipe dream in 1995. [0] https://youtu.be/e9Eds2Rc_x8

I agree It's pretty amazing what a resource the web has become, but I don't think it's all that clear what trade-offs have been made, and if the implications of those are just mere annoyances.

Re: Pizza Hut’s First Website

#147

Post by bborud »

segfaultbuserr wrote: post #81
QualityReboot wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

See also https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/SCO%E2%80%93Linux_disputes

It's important to clarify that the SCO Group in the Linux disputes was not the original Santa Cruz Operation, Santa Cruz Operation sold all Unix business to Caldera Systems in 2001, and it was Caldera Systems's CEO who started a bunch of lawsuits, suing everyone, Red Hat, and various Linux users, they even sued Novell for the Unix trademark, and obviously got a notorious reputation and turned SCO into a dirty world.…

Ah, the poetry of naming a company after a hole in the ground.

Re: Pizza Hut’s First Website

#148

Post by ghaff »

thrower123 wrote: post #77
codeulike wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's interesting that the article suggests that making a phone call would be preferable to ordering online. There's been quite a culture change since then; I'll do anything to avoid having to make a phone call.

Ordering pizza might be one of the few things that is better to do over the phone than online. It's far quicker to say "Pickup, a large pizza, half pepperoni, well done", than to fight through the combobox salad of seemingly every pizzeria online ordering system.

I'm not at all sure my local pizza place even has online ordering. But it's literally a matter of maybe 30 seconds to place an order on the phone.

I suppose there are some advantages to having all your account info already stored if you're getting a delivery but that's not an option for me.

Re: Pizza Hut’s First Website

#149

Post by theandrewbailey »

yk wrote: post #64
Iv wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"2020 was the year that would decide between two pizza deliveries techniques. Amazon-Google drone-based delivery or the MIT's supersonic pizza railgun"

An hypersonic railgun could cook the pizza using air friction. Also, it would be faster.

In the future, we can make uncooked pizzas durable enough to survive that and still be edible.

Re: Pizza Hut’s First Website

#150

Post by zrobotics »

ghaff wrote: post #148
thrower123 wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ordering pizza might be one of the few things that is better to do over the phone than online. It's far quicker to say "Pickup, a large pizza, half pepperoni, well done", than to fight through the combobox salad of seemingly every pizzeria online ordering system.

I'm not at all sure my local pizza place even has online ordering. But it's literally a matter of maybe 30 seconds to place an order on the phone. I suppose there are some advantages to having all your account info already stored if you're getting a delivery but that's not an option for me.

Eh, at least the 2 local pizzerias that I order from can both locate my account from a phone number, so if I call & say I've ordered before they just need to confirm the address. One of them does have online-ordering; and while the page is decent I still find it faster to call.

Haven't ordered from Pizza-Hut online, but ordering online from Dominos was absolute hell. There is no way to view your total without clicking through to checkout, and prices aren't listed. So the only way to find out what a specialty pizza costs is to add it to the cart, dismiss all the upsell popups about adding dessert and a soda, then view the cart.

Plus, even on a desktop computer with a decent connection it loads so much crap. The page ends up being heavier than Youtube, and I fail to see why I need to load as much resources to order a pizza vs. watch streaming video. Not worth it, especially as their pizza is neither particularly good or particularly cheap.

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