Yeah, I'd say "old web" is early '90s up through about mid-2000s or so. Geocities, Tripod, Angelfire, lots of standalone web forums, the early blogosphere, no social media, etc.
Back in the early 2000s, we were encouraging all of our friends and family still using AOL to come over to the open web. Little did we know that they'd provide the impetus for the open web to gradually turn into a new version of AOL.
It's time for trust busters to mandate the gardens have open standards based authentication-less protocols for scraping and viewing the content behind their walls. If that bankrupts them then so what? That's what they get for being web-destroying walled gardens!
‘09-‘14 is hilariously not the “old web.” With that said, those of us who participated in what I consider the “old web” are likely “old” now, so… shrug?
Two of my favorite sites [0][1] still online—Lurkers Guide to Babylon 5 and ex-astris-scientia—were started in ‘92 and ‘98 respectively.
Yeah, I took a shortcut by just grabbing the copyright on page, but Lurker’s Guide to Babylon 5 has a slightly more storied history than being a www site. It started on Usenet before the pilot even aired iirc. I assume the ‘92 date encompasses the early content that evolved into the site it became.
With that said, its domain has changed a few times iirc… so maybe not the best example given the nature of the article.
I've just gotten used to this at this point. My first time on the web was somewhere around 1995 I think, although my first time on the Internet was earlier (it was a proxy through some ancient BBS and I'm pretty sure it was using gopher). Even though I was just a kid back then, clearly that makes me old now.
Ha, people who didn't live it will have a hard time believing AJAX was as strong a buzzword as AI is today. Crazy to think asynchronous requests were peak innovation at the time
I'd consider the facebook and mega era to be relatively new, the "old web" for me would be the one without centralization around a few giants, the era of random phpbb forums, private websites with "this site is under construction" banners and internet directories to find stuff.
My first grandchild was born in 2000. And the COBOL panic for Y2K is probably partly my fault because 4 characters were too computational expensive when I wrote code that probably still powers your Igloo ice containers and GEICO insurance policies. 80's tech still persists!
Yeah, I'd say "old web" is early '90s up through about mid-2000s or so. Geocities, Tripod, Angelfire, lots of standalone web forums, the early blogosphere, no social media, etc.
Pre-social media is probably the watermark. That’s what sucked all the content out of the web and into walled-garden platforms.
Back in the early 2000s, we were encouraging all of our friends and family still using AOL to come over to the open web. Little did we know that they'd provide the impetus for the open web to gradually turn into a new version of AOL.
As they say, now it is five social media platforms posting copies of each others content.
It's time for trust busters to mandate the gardens have open standards based authentication-less protocols for scraping and viewing the content behind their walls. If that bankrupts them then so what? That's what they get for being web-destroying walled gardens!
I think there are a few eras. Pre-graphics, then pre-Google search, then pre-social media/public facebook.
There was the sub era of Flash based nonsense. Somewhere in the 2002-2005 period.
Yeah, 2009-2014 feels more like the old social web to me
https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/old-2
‘09-‘14 is hilariously not the “old web.” With that said, those of us who participated in what I consider the “old web” are likely “old” now, so… shrug?
Two of my favorite sites [0][1] still online—Lurkers Guide to Babylon 5 and ex-astris-scientia—were started in ‘92 and ‘98 respectively.
Elegant content for a more civilized age.
[0] http://www.midwinter.com/lurk/
[1] https://www.ex-astris-scientia.org/
1992 would be super SUPER early for the web. Looks like it launched in 1994.
Yeah, I took a shortcut by just grabbing the copyright on page, but Lurker’s Guide to Babylon 5 has a slightly more storied history than being a www site. It started on Usenet before the pilot even aired iirc. I assume the ‘92 date encompasses the early content that evolved into the site it became.
With that said, its domain has changed a few times iirc… so maybe not the best example given the nature of the article.
I've just gotten used to this at this point. My first time on the web was somewhere around 1995 I think, although my first time on the Internet was earlier (it was a proxy through some ancient BBS and I'm pretty sure it was using gopher). Even though I was just a kid back then, clearly that makes me old now.
Speaking of gopher, I'm low-key hoping that becomes the new place for all the non-bot traffic. Gopher felt magical back in the pre-www days.
Too many protocols. https://wiki.archiveteam.org/index.php/SmolNet
I’m old and it’s definitely not the old web. I consider the old web to be when PNGs were sliced with Fireworks and laid out in tables.
2009-2014 is Web 2.0, back when people still thought social media was a good idea.
> I consider the old web to be when PNGs were sliced with Fireworks and laid out in tables.
PNGs? We had (mostly static) GIFs and we liked them.
Ha yeah you're right. It wasn't a proper homepage if it didn't have an animated traffic cone 'Under construction' gif.
Old web was 88x31 buttons, 468x60 banners and tables
2003-2009ish was Web 2.0, part of it was CSS/web standards and AJAX and blogging becoming more mainstream
Ha, people who didn't live it will have a hard time believing AJAX was as strong a buzzword as AI is today. Crazy to think asynchronous requests were peak innovation at the time
PNGs are new, not old.
+1 for this
I'd consider the facebook and mega era to be relatively new, the "old web" for me would be the one without centralization around a few giants, the era of random phpbb forums, private websites with "this site is under construction" banners and internet directories to find stuff.
God… I stood up so, so many phpBB instances.
My first grandchild was born in 2000. And the COBOL panic for Y2K is probably partly my fault because 4 characters were too computational expensive when I wrote code that probably still powers your Igloo ice containers and GEICO insurance policies. 80's tech still persists!
For me the old web is when people still had homepages. When those went away, the old web died.
It was still a significantly different era than today. Let’s call it Middle Web. Maybe Late Middle Web.
Right? When I think of the old web I think of my Xena and X-Files fan sites on Geocities circa 1997
I was a few years late to the start (early 90s kid) but I am nostalgic for the vast amount of myfreewebs + dot.tk websites out there.
Hit counters on the front page was mandatory of course.
Please don't forget to sign my guestbook! (low res gif of pen and paper goes here)
Hit counters showing 00000089
2009 is old web now, and this is how we find out we're old... Yet I think maybe "middle-aged web" is the more accurate term