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Google in 1998

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Re: Google in 1998

#61
post #54

Apart from the cheesy look of the logo, that actually looks much better, nicer and cleaner than the monstrosity they are serving today. It gives the user a very good, immediate overview of the results without bad, distracting UI noise all over the place. Sometimes less is definitely more. Not that it bothers me much though, I've long switch to duckduckgo. They are actually innovating at this search-engine game, much…

You cant be serious. I mean, it's nice that duckduckgo tries, but compared to google their "innovation" is basically non-existent. The amount of special cases and functionality google has added to their search engine the past couple years is massive[1]. They have become just fantastic at giving the user what they were searching for right away without even having to click on a link [2]. The use of space by google is s…

> That which i have mentioned doesn't even touch the search algorithm itself, which I probably don't even have to say anything about because it's common knowledge how far ahead google is in that aspect too,

It is a source of great sadness to me that Google's algorithm, and the misuse of it be SEO scumbags, has fucked the web as a fun place to get information.

Even if we remove the scumbags we see a degraded web experience. Here's one example.

Play Dough recipe:

---- You need:

2 cups plain flour (all purpose) 2 tablespoons vegetable oil 1/2 cup salt 2 tablespoons cream of tartar 1.5 cups boiling water (adding more in increments if needed) food colouring (optional) few drops glycerine (optional- adds more shine!)

Method:

Mix the flour, salt, cream of tartar and oil in a large mixing bowl Add the boiling water Stir continuously until it becomes a sticky, combined dough Add the food colouring and glycerine (both optional) Allow it to cool down then take it out of the bowl and knead it vigorously for a couple of minutes until all of the stickiness has gone. * This is the most important part of the process, so keep at it until it’s the perfect consistency!* (If it remains a little sticky then add a touch more flour until just right) ----

With images this is, at most, a couple of hundred kB. But the page I get this from is over 2 MB.

(http://theimaginationtree.com/2012/04/best-ever-no-cook-play...)

It's a suboptimal experience. It's not even the ads that I dislike, I'm pretty tolerant of them. it's all the other junk and cruft. A 1998 WWW site would have had a recipe, and then had reasons for including the different ingredients, and an explanation of what happens if you don't have them. (and maybe it would have been collaboratively written by a Usenet newsgroup for their faq.)

Re: Google in 1998

#62

Amazing how all of the subtle changes make it look like a kid's toy.

Not really. The current flat design fad will look tired in a few years too. (I'm going to do a dance in the street when the designers finally get tired of Helvetica Light.) What's really interesting is that the link to Amazon in 1998 looks basically like Amazon today. There's one site that hasn't really changed at all in 15 years; instead of switching fonts around, they built fulfillment warehouses instead. Interesti…

I completely agree. I think it's amazing how our perception slowly shifts over time, until things that seemed high tech turn antiquated simply because we were overexposed to a certain font.

Re: Google in 1998

#63
post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why? What was the reasoning?

Three reasons. First, professional courtesy. Search was a very small world in 1998 (that is, in terms of people working in the field). There was an academic quality to the industry, with a lot of freshly minted college kids, teachers and universities involved. Second, a stamp of confidence in their technology. That is: if we're not doing a good enough job, we deserve to lose, and here's our competition. Third, money.…

Are you by any chance a former Inktomi developer?

Re: Google in 1998

#65
post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, man, dat java water effect: http://web.archive.org/web/19991010223952/http://www-db.stan...

Java Applets were light years ahead of anything else including Flash. The single only reason why Java Applets did not become the defacto interactive web client side technology is due to (in my opinion) Microsoft. And as another reader pointed out, it's an animated GIF.

From my perspective, the reason they didn't catch on was because they took forever to load and most did gimmicky things like the cheezy water effect. If they had used it to make a YouTube-alike back in the day, it might have caught on.

Re: Google in 1998

#66
post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You cant be serious. I mean, it's nice that duckduckgo tries, but compared to google their "innovation" is basically non-existent. The amount of special cases and functionality google has added to their search engine the past couple years is massive[1]. They have become just fantastic at giving the user what they were searching for right away without even having to click on a link [2]. The use of space by google is s…

You cant be serious. Oh but I am. It's nice that you are attempting back your point with concrete examples, but none of those examples impress me. Those features are implemented in a way which I dislike. And that's the thing here: Google has stopped innovating, at least as far as features I appreciate is concerned. Yes, that is subjective, but so are most of your points as well. Personally I much prefer DDG's respons…

Google has stopped innovating, at least as far as features I appreciate is concerned.

I agree. But, as always, we're not the customer, we're the product. Google continues to innovate on things that make money. Why would you expect a profit-seeking company to do otherwise?

Re: Google in 1998

#67
post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Java Applets were light years ahead of anything else including Flash. The single only reason why Java Applets did not become the defacto interactive web client side technology is due to (in my opinion) Microsoft. And as another reader pointed out, it's an animated GIF.

From my perspective, the reason they didn't catch on was because they took forever to load and most did gimmicky things like the cheezy water effect. If they had used it to make a YouTube-alike back in the day, it might have caught on.

I see your point but Youtube (good example BTW) wasn't even founded until February 14, 2005, this was long after the Java battles of the late 1990's.

Re: Google in 1998

#68

Apart from the cheesy look of the logo, that actually looks much better, nicer and cleaner than the monstrosity they are serving today. It gives the user a very good, immediate overview of the results without bad, distracting UI noise all over the place. Sometimes less is definitely more. Not that it bothers me much though, I've long switch to duckduckgo. They are actually innovating at this search-engine game, much…

You can get a quite simpler look if you disable javascript. Same goes for gmail, I've been using gmail's html-only interface (well, there actually is some js but its not required) and I get a kick out of how many complaints I hear about the new interface. The html-lite version still looks and acts a bit like gmail did in 2005.

Of course now that I've said that, it'll probably be gone soon...

Re: Google in 1998

#69
post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You cant be serious. I mean, it's nice that duckduckgo tries, but compared to google their "innovation" is basically non-existent. The amount of special cases and functionality google has added to their search engine the past couple years is massive[1]. They have become just fantastic at giving the user what they were searching for right away without even having to click on a link [2]. The use of space by google is s…

You cant be serious. Oh but I am. It's nice that you are attempting back your point with concrete examples, but none of those examples impress me. Those features are implemented in a way which I dislike. And that's the thing here: Google has stopped innovating, at least as far as features I appreciate is concerned. Yes, that is subjective, but so are most of your points as well. Personally I much prefer DDG's respons…

How do you know what the official site for a text string is?
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