No mention of AltaVista?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AltaVista
PS. Astalavista was also fun :) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astalavista.box.sk
Internet Artifacts
81–90 of 143 posts
Re: Internet Artifacts
#82I'm not sure how younger folks would feel seeing this...perhaps that it's ugly, less useful, sparse. And they'd be a bit right. But for me this was a hit of pure nostalgia, flipping item to item. Almost like looking through an old photo album of memories you'd forgotten years back. Thanks Neal for putting it together. Slightly fun fact - the original Space Jam site stayed intact until 2021! https://web.archive.org/we…
A photo album that gets more and more depressing.
Re: Internet Artifacts
#83For me, the greatest bit of nostalgia came from seeing the Netscape Navigator Meteors. (Going further I found this link, which also echoes how rare it is nowadays to see a working version https://erynwells.me/blog/2023/08/netscape-meteors/ ) It has been a while & the browser has such a storied history. When I was a middle schooler, I remember my elder sibling (a college CS major) explaining the chatter around 'IE4 vs…
It's not THAT rare to see a working version.
Re: Internet Artifacts
#84How does Heaven's Gate server manage to stay online? Do they also update it to keep up with security patches or that isn't necessary?
There are members of the cult who took the sacrifice to not follow the others to the comet and maintain the cult's presence and memory on the doomed Earth. They give interviews now and then.
Re: Internet Artifacts
#85Missing the "under construction" gif, a visits counter, and... goatse.
Re: Internet Artifacts
#86I jumped over to the Wikipedia page of early blogger Justin Hall to see what he's up to. He has another distinction that he can probably claim: The longest recorded gap between registering a domain and finally using it to start a business. "In September 2017, Hall began work as co-founder & Chief Technology Officer for bud.com, a California benefit corporation delivering recreational cannabis, built on a domain name…
That reminded me of Orkut, which was a social networking product, but created by Orkut Büyükkökten.
So he just reused his personal domain name for the product! https://orkut.com/
Re: Internet Artifacts
#87Earlier quoted context omitted.
I only knew it through the lens of it being a (good natured) punching bag of somethingawful.com. Today it's still up and being updated regularly, while somethingawful hasn't had a new article in half a decade+.
Something Awful is also missing from this history. Maybe too niche? Though for geeks and gamers it was well known, and (checks Wikipedia) it was launched on 1999... It was certainly a notable part of the internet culture of the era.
I think it might not be well-known how much of current internet culture cascaded out from the hive that was the SA forums. 4chan was started by an SA goon, as was bellingcat, for example.
Re: Internet Artifacts
#88Really cool website. I like the interactivity of every little artifact.
The progressive loading of images in the “embedded browsers” is annoying though. I’m not sure if it’s because all images “load” at the same speed (this wasn’t true with dialup), or if it’s because the animation gets old very quickly.
Re: Internet Artifacts
#89Earlier quoted context omitted.
fark.com
I only knew it through the lens of it being a (good natured) punching bag of somethingawful.com. Today it's still up and being updated regularly, while somethingawful hasn't had a new article in half a decade+.
Drew Curtis Presents Drew Curtis' Fark.com By Drew Curtis
Re: Internet Artifacts
#90Lots of great memories beautifully bottled up and impeccably presented (as we've come to expect from Neal). I was hoping the million dollar homepage would be included, and wasn't disappointed. :-)
Did anyone else notice how the audio stops playing when you slide to the next screen, except for zombo.com? Haha.
Related Artifacts:
"Here comes another bubble" - https://youtube.com/watch?v=SvmNDym6CvQ (dotcom startup boom)
BonziBUDDY - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BonziBuddy (predatory browser extension dressed up as your friend)
Digg - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digg (reddit predecessor)
RuneScape - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RuneScape / https://play.runescape.com/
Ultima Online - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultima_Online / https://uo.com
Demoscene - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demoscene
Warez - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_warez_groups
I'm sure there were other notable phenomenons that didn't make the cut, what did I miss?