The old web
The record, by subject
🏷 Topic challenge · The old web edition
Have you seen it? The old web only.
This is not the main game. Only The old web records come up, and the desk hands out its own titles and badges, from Born On Broadband to Webmaster. Your main-game file is left alone.
Start the The old web challenge ▶Records open on their real pages. Answer on each one.
Badges on offer5Five · this page is best viewed in Netscape10Ten · you have a guestbook25Twenty-five · webring member
From the blog The old web
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From the dictionary The old web
↺ Undeadn.
Line Rider
A sledger on a line you drew. The purest Flash toy, killed with the format and rebuilt without it by people who owed it their childhood.
▸ 2006peak 2007†2020
● Aliven.✎ 3
Keyboard Warrior
A person who is brave only when typing — the keyboard warrior — as the mid-2000s name for the commenter who would say none of it to your face, and the record's entry for the courage that ends at the screen. The armchair general is its military cousin.
▸ 2005peak 2012still up
● Aliven.✎ 3
Edit War
Two editors reverting each other's changes to a page until one gives up or is banned — the edit war — as Wikipedia's founding conflict, fought over the spelling of yoghurt, the nationality of a composer, and whether a sandwich is a sandwich. The record's entry for the war with an undo button.
▸ 2003peak 2010still up
☠ Deadn.✎ 3
Peanut Butter Jelly Time
A dancing banana that would not stop. Killed by a television sitcom using it, then by Flash dying, twice over.
▸ 2002peak 2005†2007
◐ Dyingn.✎ 2
Double Post
Posting the same message twice by accident — the double post — as the forum era's small shame, followed by 'sorry, double post' and a moderator's sigh. The record's entry for the error that every platform has since prevented and that still, somehow, happens.
▸ 2000peak 2008still up
● Aliven.✎ 2
Thread Hijack
Taking over someone else's discussion with your own topic — the thread hijack — as the forum's oldest discourtesy, and the record's entry for the conversation that was about printers and is now about a divorce. 'Sorry to hijack, but' is the confession that precedes it.
▸ 2000peak 2010still up
● Aliven.✎ 3
Asterisk Correction
A typo fixed in the next message with an asterisk — 'their' / '*there' — as the chat convention that has survived every platform, and the record's entry for the smallest edit, which is also the most polite. Nobody agrees on whether the asterisk goes before or after.
▸ 1998peak 2010still up
☠ Deadn.
Hamster Dance
Rows of animated hamsters and a sped-up Roger Miller loop. Made to win a bet about traffic between friends, then made into a novelty single, which is how it died.
▸ 1998peak 1999†2001
▲ Fossilphr.✎ 3
You Are the Millionth Visitor
The flashing banner that announced you had won — 'You are the 1,000,000th visitor! Click here!' — as the early web's lie, and the record's entry for the advert that every visitor was the millionth to see. Punching the monkey was its sibling.
▸ 1998peak 2004†2010
▲ Fossiln.✎ 2
Angelfire
GeoCities for people who had already been thrown off GeoCities. Technically still online, which counts for less than you would think.
▸ 1996peak 1999†2009
● Aliven.✎ 4
Amazon (1995)
The online bookshop Jeff Bezos opened in July 1995, chosen as a starting point because books were easy to post and there were too many of them for any shop to stock. The 'everything' came later and then kept coming. The record's entry for the moment shopping moved indoors permanently.
▸ 1995peak 2020still up
☠ Deadn.✎ 3
AuctionWeb
The online auction market Pierre Omidyar launched in September 1995, two months after Amazon, as one section of his personal site. The first thing it sold was a broken laser pointer. It became eBay in 1997, and the old name went. The record's entry for the site that taught the internet to bid.
▸ 1995peak 1996†1997
▲ Fossiln.✎ 2
Chain Letter (Email)
'Forward this to ten people or you will have bad luck' — the email chain letter, as the 1990s–2000s' viral content, sent by aunts, and the record's entry for the threat that a generation obeyed. Bill Gates would pay you; a girl with no arms would haunt you; both were false.
▸ 1995peak 2002†2010
◐ Dyingn.✎ 4
Craigslist
Craig Newmark's list of San Francisco events, started as an email in 1995 and a website in 1996, that grew into the classified ads of the internet: flats, sofas, jobs, and a personals section that did for print classifieds what the site's design refused to do for itself. The record's entry for the page that has not changed.
▸ 1995peak 2008still up
◐ Dyingn.✎ 3
Flamebait
A post designed to provoke a flame war — flamebait — as the Usenet ancestor of ragebait, and the record's entry for the lure before the word 'bait' had a hundred prefixes. Its author was a troll before troll was a noun.
▸ 1995peak 2005still up
● Aliven.✎ 2
Grammar Police
The commenter who corrects your spelling instead of your argument — the grammar police — as the internet's oldest pedant, and the record's entry for the correction that is also a dodge. 'Your/you're' has ended more debates than any fact.
▸ 1995peak 2010still up
● Aliven.✎ 4
Newgrounds
Everything Flash, by everyone, unreviewed. Outlived Flash itself, which nobody expected, and is now the fossil bed in which most of the 2000s can be found.
▸ 1995peak 2006still up
● Aliven.✎ 3
Nigerian Prince
The email from a royal who needs help moving a fortune and only your bank details will do — the Nigerian prince — as the 1990s scam that became a phrase for any obvious con, and the record's entry for the prince, who is still writing, and whose spelling is, reportedly, deliberate.
▸ 1995peak 2005still up
● Aliven.✎ 3
Reply All
The button that sends your reply to everyone, pressed by mistake — reply all — as the source of every corporate email disaster, and 'reply-all storm' for the cascade of people asking to be removed from a list, which adds them to it. The record's entry for the button, and the storms, some of which took down servers.
▸ 1995peak 2015still up
☠ Deadn.✎ 6
GeoCities
Thirty-eight million personal pages, deleted on a Monday. The largest single act of cultural destruction in the history of the web, and nobody held a funeral.
▸ 1994peak 1999†2009
▲ Fossiln.✎ 4
QuickCam
The Connectix QuickCam, a grey plastic ball on a stand, sold for $99 in 1994 and captured 320 by 240 pixels in shades of grey on a Mac. It was the first webcam ordinary people could buy, and with CU-SeeMe it produced the first online video calls. The record's entry for the eyeball on the monitor.
▸ 1994peak 1996†1998
◐ Dyingn.✎ 4
Yahoo!
The directory of websites two Stanford students started in February 1994, first under the name Jerry and David's Guide to the World Wide Web, then as the portal that was the front door of the web for most of a decade. The record's entry for the homepage everybody had before they had a choice.
▸ 1994peak 1999still up
▲ Fossiln.✎ 4
Mosaic
The browser from the National Center for Supercomputing Applications, written by Marc Andreessen and Eric Bina and released in January 1993. It was fast and it showed images inline with the text, which is the feature that made the web a place to look at rather than read. The record's entry for the first browser people actually liked.
▸ 1993peak 1994†1997
▲ Fossiln.✎ 4
Trojan Room Coffee Pot
A filter coffee machine in the Trojan Room of the Cambridge computer lab, filmed by a camera so that researchers could see whether the pot was full before walking to it. It reached the web on 22 November 1993 and became the first livestream. The record's entry for a coffee pot with a global audience.
▸ 1993peak 1996†2001
● Aliven.✎ 4
World Wide Web
Tim Berners-Lee's system of pages linked to other pages, built at CERN and made public in August 1991. The web is the part of the internet most people mean when they say the internet. The record's entry for the reason the record has anywhere to live.
▸ 1991peak 2007still up
● Aliven.✎ 3
Armchair Expert
A person with confident opinions about a field they have never worked in — the armchair expert, armchair epidemiologist, armchair general — as the internet's most populous profession, which peaked in 2020 when everyone became a virologist and again in 2022 when everyone became a military strategist.
▸ 1990peak 2020still up
● Aliven.✎ 4
Top-Level Domain
The last part of a web address: .com, .org, .net, .edu, .gov, .mil, later the country codes and the vanity suffixes. Defined in RFC 920 in 1984 and put to work in 1985, under Jon Postel's stewardship of the domain name system. The record's entry for the three letters that decided whether a company was serious.
▸ 1985peak 2000still up
▲ Fossiln.✎ 4
ARPANET
The packet-switched research network built for the US Department of Defense that first carried traffic between UCLA and Stanford on 29 October 1969. Everything the record covers runs on the plumbing ARPANET tested: packets, hosts, a protocol that lets separate networks talk. The record's entry for the thing before the thing.
▸ 1969peak 1983†1990