I have just realised that tomorrow the 17th of Feb (or that could be today, or even yesterday, depending on when you read this!) is my 10th anniversary of having a presence on the internet. The day I uploaded my first website www.underdownunder.com.au for my business at the time, a backpacker tour company in Tasmania.
What a Pathetic thing to remember ,I hear you say! Does he have it in his diary? Did he get a Tattoo to mark the occasion? No I didn’t.
What I did was to go to the Internet Archive, Wayback Machine! What a fantastic service. The Internet Archive Wayback Machine allows you to enter a Web address and see what the site looked like over the years. You can select dates of major changes to sites over the years, right back to 1996.
Not only is this site a lot of fun, but it can be a very useful tool in analysing web presence history. Of course, besides my own site, the first name I entered was Google. Here we find the first loaded page for The Internet Giant, some might say God. Nov 11th 1998. And a Link page that is very basic, and says…
Welcome To Google
Google Search Engine Prototype
Might-work-some-of-the-time-prototype-that is much more up to date.
And have a look at the first search page…
Everything they are now is there, then. A solid foundation, that has not been compromised. The Logo is instantly recognisable and the function of the site is the same. Basic Principles adhered to and they are number 1. Yahoo, a similar result. From their first page you can see their direction albeit exactly what they are today, a bit of everything for everybody.
Now, try finding Facebook’s earliest incarnations of what we have today. They have blocked it from showing. Does this indicate a fundamental flaw in their character? (or ours?)
It’s interesting also to see the evolution of our largest Real Estate sites as well, RealEstate.com.au and Domain.com.au.
Anyway I won’t go into anymore musings over the many conclusions that could be drawn over timelines and changes we see, you can do that. Have a play around with it, you’ll have fun.
Or maybe you will think I am pathetic!!!