10 old internet trends (1)
Trends on the Internet are constantly changing, and those changes tend to happen extremely fast. A website or social network that was cool last year is probably at least a little less cool today. That’s just the way it goes when it comes to web culture and better technology. We get bored and move on to newer, cooler things.
The Internet is still young, but we’ve already seen a whole bunch of sites, tools and social trends peak in user numbers and then slowly die right before our eyes. So here’s a blast from the past of some of our most beloved Internet trends we once knew and loved so many years ago – yet hardly even remember today.
1. Geocities
There was a time when it seemed like every single person embracing this new thing called “the Internet” had a really colorful, flashy site hosted for free by Geocities, Angelfire or Tripod. Almost everyone’s site resembled a high-tech disco party of poorly thought out color schemes, HTML frames up the whazoo and really bad animated GIFs that made no sense. Sadly, Geocities.com has been taken offline and buried forever in the past. It was fun while it lasted. Good old Geocities. We’ll never forget you.
2. ICQ
ICQ debuted in 1996 as the very first instant messaging platform. When people figured out that you could sign up and add actual people you knew to your own friend list so you could chat in real-time, it was a pretty big deal. People eventually moved on to other popular messenger apps like AIM, MSN and others, but believe it or not -ICQ is actually still alive today. In fact, you can even get it on your mobile device. Although nobody really talks about using it much anymore, it’s done slightly alright in terms of keeping up with the times.
3. Hotmail
Most of us associate Hotmail with the rise of Internet use and email in the mid to late 90s. A significant number of us Gen Yers created horrible addresses like sexy_devil_1988 (at) hotmail (dot) com without thinking twice, and spent a lot of time sending out fake chain letters and messages that asked you to stare at a picture of a room for 30 seconds before a creepy zombielike face would suddenly appear. Hotmail is actually still around today, but it was recently sort of revamped by Microsoft with the launch of Outlook.com.
4. Neopets
In the 90s, there was a huge trend with the whole “virtual pet” idea. After Tamagochis kind of had their run, the rise of the Internet gave way to something new: Neopets – a site launched in 1999 where you could take care of virtual pets and purchase virtual items for them to use in gaming against other users. Some people consider it to be one of the very first, true social networks of the web. The site is still up, and looks just as fun as ever. In 2011, Neopets announced that since it was first created, the site passed one trillion page views.
5. Napster
Napster was the very first peer-to-peer (P2P) file-sharing network that essentially rattled the music and entertainment industry. Most of us remember it well. Free music? Yes please. Today, Napster is part of music streaming service Rhapsody. Although Napster really helped kick-off the digital and Internetbased music trend, it went through legal stuff to get us to where we are now. Cloud-based music services like Spotify and Rdio now offer us a new and totally legal way to enjoy music.
(Culled from webtrends. about.com… follow @sinach360 and @Daily_Trust) Yes, because he is the coach. If the officials know better, one of them should take the coaching job. Yes, because he interacts with the players and knows their capacity and capability better than everyone else. Yes, but he should listen to some Nigerian sport commentators and pundits because two heads are better than one.