I remember the NCSA Web Site of the Day, circa 1993. It was a page that listed new web sites that had appeared on the web, with a brief summary and link to each one.
Many days there wasn't a new web site. Some days there were two.
Does anyone remember websites?
91–100 of 386 posts
Re: Does anyone remember websites?
#92I 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. Almost anything popular and rather insipid, yes. Try to find more detailed information on very specific topics, however, and you'll discover that search engines like Google have been optimising more and more for the former content, making it harder to find the latter. I don't think that's a good thing at a…
>> Try to find more detailed information on very specific topics, however, and you'll discover that search engines like Google have been optimising more and more for the former content, making it harder to find the latter. I don't think that's a good thing at all.
This. A thousand times, this.
I really feel is the unfortunate consequences of our short attention span and everyone marketing towards an insanely short attention span is you get the firehose of information, but zero depth to any of it.
If I want to dig; really dig into a subject, 99% of what Google pukes at me is not helpful at all. A few times lately, I've ran into something I've found through Google, but trying to dig any deeper is futile. I've had to go down to the local library and start digging through news clippings, books and magazines. Actual, real old fashioned leg work.
I've come to feel like the internet has no depth anymore, everything is just enough to satisfy a .001 second attention span. Sad when you really stop and think about it.
Re: Does anyone remember websites?
#93Re: Does anyone remember websites?
#94Last night I ended up, for some weird nostalgic reason, installing a Gopher client, just to see if there was anything still around. Amazingly, there's a bunch of blogs (called phlogs in Gopherspace) that people are updating regularly! Pretty amazing!
How did you find these Gopher sites? Is there a Gopher search engine, or is it just a hand-updated list?
Re: Does anyone remember websites?
#95I understand the sarcasm, but really, there are a lot of "real" websites, directly controlled by individuals who post what they want. I point you to my own website, https://www.dwheeler.com .... it's not the latest in CSS, no Megabytes of JavaScript, and no cross-site tracking either.
Re: Does anyone remember websites?
#96Earlier quoted context omitted.
One notable example from the 90s that I was referring to with this statement was a site that had many, many pages about unusual science/mystery/gnosis/anarchism. I haven't been able to locate it. (- the author)
Was it ZetaTalk? Ah, the 90s internet, where kookery and legitimacy stood side by side.
you're right - the kookery and legitimacy is no longer side by side, it's now stacked and you scroll through it on social media ;)
Re: Does anyone remember websites?
#97I 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…
Stumbleupon ? :P
Do a lot of people actually use it? It seems like you could just as easily replace that site by simple tweets when you actually stumble upon something worthy. Which is what most people do IMO.
Re: Does anyone remember websites?
#98I 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. Almost anything popular and rather insipid, yes. Try to find more detailed information on very specific topics, however, and you'll discover that search engines like Google have been optimising more and more for the former content, making it harder to find the latter. I don't think that's a good thing at a…
Google is not great for finding stuff. I’ve complained at length about how bad it is for doing research, but recently I’ve also found it’s totally useless for finding things like reviews of products (unless it’s something like the new iPhone). It’s like legitimate reviews are a casualty in the war between Google and clickbait SEO crap.
Re: Does anyone remember websites?
#99Earlier quoted context omitted.
> what we have now is a paradise compared to what we had then Here's how I recall it: Back in the day, you'd search for subject {$foo} and you would find mostly websites written by some cranky bearded weirdo who is obsessed with {$foo}, who has devoted weeks of his time to personally collating his every thought about {$foo} into one ghastly-looking site. Nowadays, you search for {$foo} and find mostly beautifully tem…
> Nowadays, you search for {$foo} and find mostly beautifully template-designed pages of text written by indifferent fiverr freelancers who had about 20 minutes to stuff in as many keywords into as many column inches wrapped around as many ad slots as possible before moving on to the next subject. Yeesh, does anyone else have this opinion? I sure don't. It's never been more trivial to find good, enriching content. Ho…
I have to agree with you that I generally don't see those kinds of pages as well.
Sure, they exist, and I do stumble on them from time to time, but most of the time I will find what I'm looking for, often with a wealth of user comments as well.
Re: Does anyone remember websites?
#100The site I remember feeling that way about was the Robot Wisdom Homepage, now preserved only on the WayBack Machine: https://web.archive.org/web/20130409045156/http://www.robotw...