Share how the www has impacted your life. What are your favorite websites. Which ones have gone away. Overall has the www been a blessing in your life?
The earliest website I can remember is hotmail.com. This was when we had to refresh the browser (netscape?) window to update the inbox. : ) And, if I recall correctly, we could open only one tab per browser. Had to start multiple instances to open more tabs. I misplaced my hotmail password and after no use, the account went away. Feel bad about that. The other website I fondly remember using is babycenter.com. And the first time a colleague printed out detailed directions to a restaurant for a group lunch, I thought he was being nerdy and funny and had written them himself. He had used some maps application. This was before Google.
soc.culture.indian and alt.soc.inidian and their subforums were fun fun. No pictures, just text. People had to create ascii emojis. Like this Indian Flag: ████████████████████████████████████████ ████████████████████████████████████████ ████████████████████████████████████████ ████████████████████████████████████████ ████████████████████████████████████████ ████████████████████████████████████████ ████████████████████████████████████████ ░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░██████░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░ ░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░██◣◣█◣◣██░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░ ░░░░░░░░░░░░░░██◣█████◣██░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░ ░░░░░░░░░░░░░░█◣███████◣█░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░ ░░░░░░░░░░░░░░██◣█████◣██░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░ ░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░██◣◣█◣◣██░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░ ░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░███████░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░ ████████████████████████████████████████ ████████████████████████████████████████ ████████████████████████████████████████ ████████████████████████████████████████ ████████████████████████████████████████ ████████████████████████████████████████ I was younger, with the obvious advantages and shortcomings of being that. The internet, www, and information availability through search engines have all been a great help to life in so many aspects.
The first search engine I ever used was altavista. I wonder if anyone remembers it. This was much much before Google came into the picture around 1996-97. You could search for anything! It was the coolest thing I'd ever seen. : ) Google killed them. I still remember when they went offline. Marked the end of the early Internet for me. Found a nice write up about it -- Altavista: The Rise & Fall of The Biggest Pre-Google Search Engine - Digital.com
I remember soc.culture.indian and alt... These had the regular posters and there was not much anonymity, most used their real names. There were also some useful ones for job hunting also. Mention of altavista reminded me of another search engine of the time: excite. Turns out it is still alive! It's page is so clunky compared to Google. Sigh. They came, they conquered.
Ugh! I remember those early hotmail days when people would forward annoying jokes and those send-this-to-10-people-or-something-horrible-will-happen messages. If you're feeling nostalgic, check out the wayback machine. The End of the Internet! Although the original page is long gone. Indeed! .
I remember my first email account I created was in Hotmail in '98. Before that, we checked emails in company account with subject line addressed as : Attn: My name. Any one can read that email. Each time when we wanted to connect to the internet, we had to connect it thru the telephone line; often took a long time to connect. Before it gets connected, the modem gives a unique sound indicating it's connected. Thanks for the nostalgia. As mentioned, Alta Vista was one of the famous search engines.
My first email ID was created in hotmail. Funny username dee.jasmine@hotmail.com. Jasmine because I used to watch alaudin and Jasmine my favorite character. Now I feel like laughing at that mail Id. I don't even remember what password or not sure if hotmail still exists . Then orkut days. It used to be the best thing for us those days . Writing testimonials about your friends. So much fun.
I remember using a dial up modem using phone line to connect to Internet! It as during late 1990s..I think it was VSNL connection or something..we had to enter username and password and some kind of dial tone would come as it connected to Internet! And if we used phone while online the net connection would get disconnected! And the Internet connection was so damn slow! That time MSN, hotmail were most popular..yahoo to some extent only..Gmail came much later.. During mid 2000s, Orkut was so popular! It was such a craze, and so exciting to connect to old friends..of course lot of privacy and other issues in Orkut including online stalking and online bullying and irritating spam messaging etc..so I went off Orkut and didn't use for long...it was only closer to 2009-10 that Facebook seemed to gain popularity and everyone wanted to use it ..now, with smartphones, 4G data, unlimited data packs, super fast broadband WiFi connections etc, connecting to Internet is no big deal! What was a luxury in the 1990s is a necessity now!we feel proud when we are successfully able to teach even elderly people in 70s age group to send mails, messages, surf Internet, use whatsapp etc.