Old Websites Sure Are Funny - Gizmodo Comments

Old Websites Sure Are Funny

HeartBurnKid, creepy morbid freak — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 18:19:32 EST

I honestly miss the web being that way. Am I the only one who still subscribes to the KISS principle?

HeartBurnKid, creepy morbid freak

Old Websites Sure Are Funny

vote Obama — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 13:52:47 EST

@ligatures:

they loaded pretty quick and didn't need plug-ins.

vote Obama

Old Websites Sure Are Funny

SteveDu — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 12:15:07 EST

I've seen this site and the site that inspired it, and I'm trying to figure out what the joke is. Does anyone seriously think present sites are an improvement on these? The big difference I see is these old pages have actual information and links to useful material on the home page instead of eye candy and useless intermediate levels of links, plus no popups, welcome screens, sidebar ads, and other junk. "Professional web designer" is an oxymoron - emphasis on the "moron."

SteveDu

Old Websites Sure Are Funny

cardboardbelt — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 11:43:47 EST

Websites today are going to look just as shameful in 10 years

cardboardbelt

Old Websites Sure Are Funny

ligatures — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 01:48:13 EST

I love the fact that these website don't have any ads, banners or flashing crap on them.

ligatures

Old Websites Sure Are Funny

karmaghost — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 00:06:16 EST

Reebok, Dell, and Honda weren't actually that bad.

karmaghost

Old Websites Sure Are Funny

x23 — Sun, 27 Jan 2008 19:54:04 EST

i forget what era it was... but in the first year or so there was a Gizmodo that was actually a much cleaner and legible version than what exists now. granted... commenting didn't exist. but it was easier to actually just read.

x23

Old Websites Sure Are Funny

ceilingFANBOY — Sun, 27 Jan 2008 19:20:58 EST

@discomonkey: Yes, yes, I knew what you were referring to. I was just making a joke about how she's no longer attractive because she has more plastic than skin and they didn't really do a good job with the plastic.

ceilingFANBOY

Old Websites Sure Are Funny

discomonkey — Sun, 27 Jan 2008 18:29:14 EST

@ceilingFANBOY: got shrinkage: 1. left 2. right

discomonkey

Old Websites Sure Are Funny

ceilingFANBOY — Sun, 27 Jan 2008 17:26:44 EST

@discomonkey: The section from when she looked good and when she doesn't look good? Oh wait, this page is probably from before she became a plastic surgery disaster.

ceilingFANBOY

Old Websites Sure Are Funny

Onyro — Sun, 27 Jan 2008 14:39:23 EST

Wow Google looked bad with the colored tables and unevenly positioned search boxes, although pretty clean like today. So they did hire a real webdesigner at the end and didn't do it all themselves as they often claim.

Reebok isn't that bad. And I can remember searching through that Dell site.

But my absolute favorite in terms of worst designs still stay the McDonalds and the hideous Pepsi page from the original MSU post.

Onyro

Old Websites Sure Are Funny

Promethean — Sun, 27 Jan 2008 13:13:38 EST

OMG, google's page looks soooooooooo old and dated!!!!

Promethean

Old Websites Sure Are Funny

neoqueenx — Sun, 27 Jan 2008 12:42:30 EST

oops I meant to say not to mention that current coding .......... I mean THAT not THEN sorry for the typo :<

neoqueenx

Old Websites Sure Are Funny

neoqueenx — Sun, 27 Jan 2008 12:40:35 EST

I guess people getting broadband and DSL connections had a big part in websites getting better. Load times were an issue back then. Back then the majority of users had, eww… dare I say it….dial-up *shivers*
Not to mention then current coding methods people use nowadays are far superior to what they had back then.
And I agree with some of the other users, I like the old yahoo page much more.
Some of the site were pretty good given the time there were done, I'm sure you can find some new site that still look like that to this day.

neoqueenx

Old Websites Sure Are Funny

neoqueenx — Sun, 27 Jan 2008 12:25:05 EST

@crazyguzz: ROTFLMAO !

neoqueenx

Old Websites Sure Are Funny

aphex242 — Sun, 27 Jan 2008 11:44:29 EST

Wow Sony's site is FUGLY lol. Honda's actually looks quite good. hehe

aphex242

Old Websites Sure Are Funny

xmlguy — Sun, 27 Jan 2008 11:30:57 EST

@ceilingFANBOY: got shrinkage: I went to work on Dell.com just as it was moving away from that old look (which we referred to as the "Crayola icons" look)... FWIW, I also led the team that built the one 5 years ago. Its interesting that today's site looks so good, given that they it is built by a huge corporation with a ton of red tape. We had so much freedom 10 years ago and the site still looked like ass!

xmlguy

Old Websites Sure Are Funny

djdare — Sun, 27 Jan 2008 11:21:50 EST

This sony one is sweet too.

[web.archive.org]

djdare

Old Websites Sure Are Funny

AssaultTruffle — Sun, 27 Jan 2008 11:03:06 EST

Wow. I've made better sites than the old Toyota page. How did I do it, you ask? Yahoo Sitebuilder and a bottle of whiskey, that's how.

AssaultTruffle

Old Websites Sure Are Funny

VSorceress — Sun, 27 Jan 2008 10:56:38 EST

Ahh.... this brings me back to the good ol' days of 800x600 screen resolution!

VSorceress

Old Websites Sure Are Funny

scarbrtj — Sun, 27 Jan 2008 10:46:59 EST

In those days, if you made a little icon or graphic for your page, there was but one overriding thought: MUST HAVE BACKSHADOW.

scarbrtj

Old Websites Sure Are Funny

AJ_Syrinx — Sun, 27 Jan 2008 10:43:04 EST

Honda, Rebook and Sony don't look bad for that time.

AJ_Syrinx

Old Websites Sure Are Funny

djdare — Sun, 27 Jan 2008 10:35:07 EST

Places I went a lot back in 97:

[web.archive.org]

it's crazy how much things have changed... I remember when my friends and I all had AOL, and my one friends parents decided they didn't want to pay for AOL anymore, so they switched over to compuserve and we couldn't talk to him anymore because aim wasn't compatible with anything outside of it.

djdare

Old Websites Sure Are Funny

easy2panic — Sun, 27 Jan 2008 09:15:40 EST

I wish Apple still did contests.

easy2panic

Old Websites Sure Are Funny

Computer_Chef — Sun, 27 Jan 2008 09:02:26 EST

"What do you think?"

I think, like fashion, you can look back at just about any site/style and say it looks dated. At least until it becomes retro cool to all the hipster morons.

"Oh, and special (nonexistent) prize to anyone who digs through the Wayback archives and finds funny stuff for the comments."

I couldn't find anything more hilarious than the last Gizmodo entry. If you don't think so, just check back in 10 years. Of course, I wonder if the dynamic content of today is even going to be supported by browsers then. We all laugh at basic HTML, but that still works today as intended. How many sites with Flash 8 and browser-specific JavaScript hacks are even going to render in 2018?

Computer_Chef

Old Websites Sure Are Funny

Joseph — Sun, 27 Jan 2008 08:04:43 EST

The crazy part about this is that people were paying $10,000 on the low end to build you 7 html pages with links!!

Joseph

Old Websites Sure Are Funny

strider_mt2k — Sun, 27 Jan 2008 07:44:30 EST

Good stuff!

And look at little baby Gizmodo! Awwww.

@lafond66: You should probably go hang with the winners then.

strider_mt2k

Old Websites Sure Are Funny

prince_of_paradox — Sun, 27 Jan 2008 04:40:56 EST

@D.LYTE: me too

prince_of_paradox

Old Websites Sure Are Funny

snakepliskin — Sun, 27 Jan 2008 03:23:50 EST

I remember that playboy page vividly. We were the first kids in our whole neighborhood to get internet and i remember my friend coming over and saying "Lets go to playboy.com tee hee" Well when we saw the 18 and up warning sign we got so scared we didnt go much further but that website is burned into my brain. Needless to say me an internet porn go back a long ways...

snakepliskin

Old Websites Sure Are Funny

Riemannian — Sun, 27 Jan 2008 02:22:39 EST

Playboy's website is all too expected.

Riemannian

Old Websites Sure Are Funny

NewPerfection — Sun, 27 Jan 2008 02:20:58 EST

A lot of sites from the nineties look better than sites now. Too many companies try to make their sites look 'hip' or futuristic or whatever. My worst pet-peeve is fully flash-based sites. I hate that with a passion.

NewPerfection

Old Websites Sure Are Funny

LastVigilante — Sun, 27 Jan 2008 01:32:14 EST

@Ferris: She actually had two huge planets! Badum-Bump Tish!

LastVigilante

Old Websites Sure Are Funny

robinandtami — Sun, 27 Jan 2008 01:22:49 EST

I remember when my 56k modem was the SHIZZ.... I don't miss those days at all. Someone needs to come up with a plug in for your browser that plays the old modem sounds when you open up your browser; just so we can pretend we miss those days.

robinandtami

Old Websites Sure Are Funny

dap12321 — Sun, 27 Jan 2008 01:04:10 EST

Honda and Reebok look pretty good...

dap12321

Old Websites Sure Are Funny

TailsNZ — Sun, 27 Jan 2008 00:55:48 EST

I went back and looked through my old websites too, scary stuff. I'm glad I couldn't see the original issues from my newsletter Sega World Weekly (Dreamcast Weekly), because back in 1997 I didn't even have a spell checker. I wrote it in Notepad.

TailsNZ

Old Websites Sure Are Funny

sarahm — Sun, 27 Jan 2008 00:27:47 EST

Brilliant post Mark! -Sarah Meyers

sarahm

Old Websites Sure Are Funny

D.LYTE — Sun, 27 Jan 2008 00:27:20 EST

i miss the old yahoo! site.

D.LYTE

Old Websites Sure Are Funny

rossismyname — Sun, 27 Jan 2008 00:01:28 EST

If you want to see the true powers of the 1996 internet, check out the html stylings of our government. [web.archive.org]

Back when Al Gore was just getting "warmed up." [web.archive.org]

I found it interesting that ESPN has the whole insider thing working way back in 98 [web.archive.org]

Oh, and you didn't include one major late 90s computer manufacturer. [web.archive.org]

rossismyname

Old Websites Sure Are Funny

SchruteBuck — Sun, 27 Jan 2008 00:01:13 EST

I see IBM had nothing useful to offer back then either.

SchruteBuck

Old Websites Sure Are Funny

discomonkey — Sat, 26 Jan 2008 23:22:10 EST

I would have thought Pamela Anderson would have two sections.

discomonkey

Old Websites Sure Are Funny

bramachari — Sat, 26 Jan 2008 23:21:49 EST

Oh no!

bramachari

Old Websites Sure Are Funny

Mark Wilson — Sat, 26 Jan 2008 23:04:09 EST

@yardameus: Ooh, good one!

Mark Wilson

Old Websites Sure Are Funny

Jasontrainer — Sat, 26 Jan 2008 23:02:45 EST

Thanks Giz for such a lovely trip down memory lane! It seem like just yesterday I was glued to my roommate's gateway 1.3? I can't remember but it had a ONE gigabyte hard drive! That's like a THOUSAND megabytes, and when he left for Korea (to teach engrish) I grabbed a copy of: "Teach your computer how to go online with Netscape" and sure enough...I taught it right.

I also had to use about 15 floppy disks although I forget what we called them back then. And then I got online and discovered...wah wah wahhhh - bubkus - just like you got from the way back machine.

Awesome.

Jasontrainer

Old Websites Sure Are Funny

origamimavin — Sat, 26 Jan 2008 22:53:17 EST

i find it funny that Pamela Anderson had her own section on the playboy website.

origamimavin

Old Websites Sure Are Funny

yardameus — Sat, 26 Jan 2008 22:40:40 EST

what, you didn't include the text version of Webcrawler? (pre-win95/Netscape). I tell you, nothing like using telnet to download porn based on filenames. Quite the adventure.

yardameus

Old Websites Sure Are Funny

thisbeatisbadass — Sat, 26 Jan 2008 22:32:16 EST

wowwwww is that nintendo one for real LOL, complete with broken image haha

thisbeatisbadass

Old Websites Sure Are Funny

Xander — Sat, 26 Jan 2008 22:29:38 EST

I love how each site uses Times New Roman for everything. Such an ugly font.

Xander

Old Websites Sure Are Funny

discounteggroll — Sat, 26 Jan 2008 22:02:44 EST

we definitely need to do superlatives on this one. I'll start. since I'm lazy and have absolutely no willpower, my vote for "site least changed for the past 10 years" would go to google.

then

now

keeping it simple never changed so little

discounteggroll

Old Websites Sure Are Funny

permissionmag — Sat, 26 Jan 2008 21:58:41 EST

@ssjmichael: Thanks - that was actually pretty fun reading the Giz from 2002. I was trying to figure out why the writing was so poor ("sneakpeak" - eh?), then I checked the "about us" section and remembered who was running things back then...

permissionmag

Old Websites Sure Are Funny

lafond66 — Sat, 26 Jan 2008 21:56:03 EST

@ssjmichael: Whoa, If you look at the old Gizmodo, the creater of the Giz, Peter Rojas, went on to create Engaget. Looks like he knows how to create winning websites.

lafond66

Old Websites Sure Are Funny

NcSchu — Sat, 26 Jan 2008 21:40:57 EST

I'm actually surprised at how good some of them look for 1997.

NcSchu

Old Websites Sure Are Funny

discounteggroll — Sat, 26 Jan 2008 21:39:02 EST

pepsi.com

especially if you're cool enough to have the shockwave plugin

[web.archive.org]

discounteggroll

Old Websites Sure Are Funny

Palestina — Sat, 26 Jan 2008 21:36:58 EST

Honda and Reebok are cool!
MAPPED GIFS haha good to see them back.

Palestina

Old Websites Sure Are Funny

ripfire — Sat, 26 Jan 2008 21:23:19 EST

Aahh. Yahoo back in 96. I remember saying back then "Why would anyone else use any other search engine? Everything you need is there!"

Hehe. Google. It's funny because Google gave Yahoo a chance to be bought of for $5 billion. Where are they now? $150b?

ripfire

Old Websites Sure Are Funny

ceilingFANBOY — Sat, 26 Jan 2008 21:22:42 EST

All of these pages look like they were done for the final project of an introductory web page building class. Even with my low levels of html skills, I could probably make those pages.

@ssjmichael: Finally! The iPod for PC has come! Also, to be fair, Gizmodo 5 years ago didn't quite have the same website building resources that Apple or Dell would have had.

ceilingFANBOY

Old Websites Sure Are Funny

CafeRacer1200 — Sat, 26 Jan 2008 21:04:11 EST

So, David Letterman was hosting Richard Simmons and Dave Matthews back then. Good to see nothing has changed.

CafeRacer1200

Old Websites Sure Are Funny

LittleBigPlaneteer — Sat, 26 Jan 2008 21:02:31 EST

Mark you should have done Giz too though, you guys were pretty fugly back in 2002, and that's only 5 years ago! (compared to these 10 year old+ sites): [web.archive.org]

LittleBigPlaneteer

Old Websites Sure Are Funny

mrsalty — Sat, 26 Jan 2008 21:02:09 EST

The worst website i've ever seen was/is ohioramp.com I don't think their website has changed in 10 years. They still have the same top banner an everything. I think that is a record for most unchanged image on a website that has never changed.

mrsalty

Old Websites Sure Are Funny

LittleBigPlaneteer — Sat, 26 Jan 2008 21:01:06 EST

@crazyguzz:

lmao

LittleBigPlaneteer

Old Websites Sure Are Funny

crazyguzz — Sat, 26 Jan 2008 20:53:09 EST

you do realize that gizmodo looks like it was from 94 right?

crazyguzz

Old Websites Sure Are Funny

yourname — Sat, 26 Jan 2008 20:51:28 EST

Wow, despite what everyone thinks, Google has decreased tremendously. They used to be Google factorial (Google!), now they are just Google.

yourname

Old Websites Sure Are Funny

DrWebster — Sat, 26 Jan 2008 20:43:41 EST

Interesting to see the Apple page...especially the blurb about winning a PowerBook 3400. That's the exact contest I entered back in 1997 and won.

DrWebster

Old Websites Sure Are Funny

KanSer — Sat, 26 Jan 2008 20:42:15 EST

Wow, Reebok, Honda, and ABC's sites are rather good compared to the rest of the crap you dug up.

I swear, NBC had that site design until like 2004.

KanSer

Old Websites Sure Are Funny

Ferris — Sat, 26 Jan 2008 20:40:30 EST

Funny how on the playboy site, Pamela Anderson has her own little planet in orbit. Goes to show how huge she was, I guess.

Ferris

Old Websites Sure Are Funny

Maltbrew — Sat, 26 Jan 2008 20:34:49 EST

i'm to drunk for anything to make sense now!

Maltbrew

Old Websites Sure Are Funny

Gilly_bob — Sat, 26 Jan 2008 20:32:32 EST

LOL at the apple page advertising the newton... primitive technology

Gilly_bob