This is what you’re nostalgic for

There's a word for what you're feeling. It's anemoia. And it's completely made up. The post This is what you’re nostalgic for appeared first on The History of the Web. | Continue reading


@thehistoryoftheweb.com | 2 years ago

Spiderwoman, Wise-Women: Listservs to connect

Way before social media, listservs acted as a glue that held the web community together. The post Spiderwoman, Wise-Women: Listservs to connect appeared first on The History of the Web. | Continue reading


@thehistoryoftheweb.com | 2 years ago

Spiderwoman, Wise-Women: Listservs to connect

Way before social media, listservs acted as a glue that held the web community together. The post Spiderwoman, Wise-Women: Listservs to connect appeared first on The History of the Web. | Continue reading


@thehistoryoftheweb.com | 2 years ago

How we searched before search (2017)

Believe it or not, there was a time before search engines. Discovery on the web was far more difficult. It was easy to get lost. That is, until a few different people created a map. | Continue reading


@thehistoryoftheweb.com | 2 years ago

It’s 1997 and you want to build a website

You have a few options. How much time you got? The post It’s 1997 and you want to build a website appeared first on The History of the Web. | Continue reading


@thehistoryoftheweb.com | 2 years ago

It’s 1997 and you want to build a website

You have a few options. How much time you got? The post It’s 1997 and you want to build a website appeared first on The History of the Web. | Continue reading


@thehistoryoftheweb.com | 2 years ago

Gowalla, Foursquare and the (very) brief history of the Location Wars

When the iPhone was released, two apps rushed to market in a battle over geolocation that would come to be briefly known as the "location wars" The post Gowalla, Foursquare and the (very) brief history of the Location Wars appeared first on The History of the Web. | Continue reading


@thehistoryoftheweb.com | 2 years ago

Gowalla, Foursquare and the (very) brief history of the Location Wars

When the iPhone was released, two apps rushed to market in a battle over geolocation that would come to be briefly known as the "location wars" The post Gowalla, Foursquare and the (very) brief history of the Location Wars appeared first on The History of the Web. | Continue reading


@thehistoryoftheweb.com | 2 years ago

The History of the Web, Timeline

Over the last 25 years, the web has grown from a simple idea to the most important technological breakthrough of our time. | Continue reading


@thehistoryoftheweb.com | 2 years ago

Web Apps, Web Sites, Are they all the Same?

Is a website the same as a web application? That question is older than you think The post Web Apps, Web Sites, Are they all the Same? appeared first on The History of the Web. | Continue reading


@thehistoryoftheweb.com | 2 years ago

Web Apps, Web Sites, Are they all the Same?

Is a website the same as a web application? That question is older than you think The post Web Apps, Web Sites, Are they all the Same? appeared first on The History of the Web. | Continue reading


@thehistoryoftheweb.com | 2 years ago

Was Queen Elizabeth II a keen surfer of the early web?

I recently went on a bit of a journey to figure out: did Queen Elizabeth surf the early web? The post Was Queen Elizabeth II a keen surfer of the early web? appeared first on The History of the Web. | Continue reading


@thehistoryoftheweb.com | 2 years ago

The Long Tail of Uselessness

When Paul Phillips the web is at its best when its being useless he did the only thing he could think of. He built his own useless site to catalog it. The post The Long Tail of Uselessness appeared first on The History of the Web. | Continue reading


@thehistoryoftheweb.com | 2 years ago

The Most Influential Website of All Time

There's one site that is connected to Facebook, YouTube, Yahoo!, Twitter, and many others. And you probably never think about it. | Continue reading


@thehistoryoftheweb.com | 2 years ago

21st Century Community

In 1999, the word "community" took on a new meaning on the web. One that would have a lasting impact for years to come. | Continue reading


@thehistoryoftheweb.com | 2 years ago

Giving Web Standards a Seat at the Table

In 2007, the web standards project entered the scene once more to push Microsoft to build its most standards-compliant browser to date. | Continue reading


@thehistoryoftheweb.com | 2 years ago

Web Components Before Web Components

A decade before modern day web components, Microsoft had already hit on a formula for their success. | Continue reading


@thehistoryoftheweb.com | 2 years ago

Want to Get in Touch? and a November 2020 Weblog

Recently, I’ve been told that my email has been bouncing some messages back, so if you tried to email me […] | Continue reading


@thehistoryoftheweb.com | 2 years ago

We Made These Sites for Kids?

From Yahooligans! to Club Penguin, the of sites we made for kids on the early web were a bit unsteady, but formative and fun for the first web generation. | Continue reading


@thehistoryoftheweb.com | 3 years ago

The Intranet saved the Internet

In 1998, Netscape announced a bold new plan to the world. One announcement was expected. The other took the tech world by surprise. | Continue reading


@thehistoryoftheweb.com | 3 years ago

The mid-90’s was the era of the City Guide

1996 was the year of the city guide. By 1998, they were already gone. | Continue reading


@thehistoryoftheweb.com | 3 years ago

From designing interfaces to designing systems

The mid-2000's were often referred to as the era of Web 2.0. That may have been an overused term, but it undeniably changed the way designers and developers approached their practice through patterns. | Continue reading


@thehistoryoftheweb.com | 3 years ago

The Perilous Price of Blogging

A single website changed his life, and set him on a path to activism, and ultimately, exile. | Continue reading


@thehistoryoftheweb.com | 3 years ago

The Great Reckoning Comes Around: August 2021

My ongoing research has me taking another look at the Browser Wars and thinking about how they're retelling themselves in real-time today. | Continue reading


@thehistoryoftheweb.com | 3 years ago

It’s 1997 And You Want to Take a Flight

You might be surprised by what options you have. Already, in the late-90's, travel was abuzz on the web. And the competition was fierce. | Continue reading


@thehistoryoftheweb.com | 3 years ago

Feeling Lonely on the Net

There are plenty who make the case that the web makes us lonely. But sometimes, the opposite is true. | Continue reading


@thehistoryoftheweb.com | 3 years ago

The Importance of Being on Usenet

Ever wondered how people found about the web. The first transmission of its existence was a digital one, a Usenet post that sparked a following of early web pioneers. | Continue reading


@thehistoryoftheweb.com | 3 years ago

The Web’s First (and Second) Browser

The web's first browser featured full color, read/write capabilities, and multiple windows. The second browser was a text-only command line tool. Guess which one people actually used? | Continue reading


@thehistoryoftheweb.com | 3 years ago

The Web from 1989 to 1994

Over the last 25 years, the web has grown from a simple idea to the most important technological breakthrough of our time. | Continue reading


@thehistoryoftheweb.com | 3 years ago

They Offered a Million Dollars to Surf The Web. Somebody Won.

In 1995, it would be hard to believe that you could win a million dollars from surfing the web. Then, AOL made it possible. | Continue reading


@thehistoryoftheweb.com | 3 years ago

An Hour About… Psuedo.com

Pseudo.com is a forgotten relic of the dot-com era. Was it ahead of its time? A moonshot that went too far? Or simply a piece of elaborate performance art? | Continue reading


@thehistoryoftheweb.com | 3 years ago

May 2021 Weblog: Communities Long Gone

A look at how we can save our websites from ourselves, and the stories that keep us going. | Continue reading


@thehistoryoftheweb.com | 3 years ago

The Right to Link

You can link to anything on the web. That's a strength. And yet the right to link has been dragged into court on a regular basis for decades. Why is that? | Continue reading


@thehistoryoftheweb.com | 3 years ago

Checking “Under the Hood” of Code

If you're a developer today, you likely take advantage of built in tools for web debugging every day. They came from the smallest places, and it took years to get them where they are today. | Continue reading


@thehistoryoftheweb.com | 3 years ago

April 2021 Weblog: Holding on to our History

When websites disappear, how do we make sure that our history is preserved? | Continue reading


@thehistoryoftheweb.com | 3 years ago

Trying (and Failing) to be Cool

The web's turn into commercial may have happened quickly—it was largely complete by the end of the 1990's—but that doesn't mean it didn't take a turn into the weird here and there. Case and point: Zima. | Continue reading


@thehistoryoftheweb.com | 3 years ago

The Internet Book Baron

This week I have something a bit different, written by longtime newsletter author Ernie Smith, best known for his history […] | Continue reading


@thehistoryoftheweb.com | 3 years ago

March 2021 Weblog: Trusting in the Standard

A look at the work that standards makes possible, and the kinds of hypertext that were never fully realized | Continue reading


@thehistoryoftheweb.com | 3 years ago

Content Management Made Simple

Content Management Systems — software that helps people author and publish websites — likely dates back farther than you think. The problem is, it wasn't quite called that yet. | Continue reading


@thehistoryoftheweb.com | 3 years ago

The Most Ill-Timed Website in History

There are a near infinite number of sites that have launched that you've never heard about. This is likely one of them. But if not for poor timing, it may have been primed for success. | Continue reading


@thehistoryoftheweb.com | 3 years ago

February 2021 Weblog: A Healthy Web

A report on the health of the Internet, and efforts to improve that health, bring us in to a new year. | Continue reading


@thehistoryoftheweb.com | 3 years ago

Writing About the Web… On the Web

People thought a magazine about the web would never work. People thought a magazine about the web on the web would never work. They both did. | Continue reading


@thehistoryoftheweb.com | 3 years ago

January 2021 Weblog: Taking the Power Back

This month, a look at the power center in tech in the wake of a move to de-platform hate, and what the future of the personal site might look like. | Continue reading


@thehistoryoftheweb.com | 3 years ago

The man who drove from coast to coast

The web launched from a research lab in Europe, but it found its first major boom in the still-emerging Northern […] | Continue reading


@thehistoryoftheweb.com | 3 years ago

A Fun List of Browsers You’ve Never Heard Of

There are the browsers that everyone's heard of. And then there are some that, for whatever reason, faded away. These are the latter. | Continue reading


@thehistoryoftheweb.com | 3 years ago

Excerpt from Chapter 5: Webzines Find Their Voice

What follows is an excerpt from the latest chapter an ongoing series I’ve been writing for the last few months […] | Continue reading


@thehistoryoftheweb.com | 3 years ago

Why Do We Call it a Homepage?

On September 16, 1985, Steve Jobs was pushed out of Apple after a fraught and personal battle with then-CEO John […] | Continue reading


@thehistoryoftheweb.com | 3 years ago

November 2020 Weblog: Weird Web, Independent Web

Chapter 5 of my series is out now, so make sure to get caught up! Plus, the weird web of the past and the independent web of the future. | Continue reading


@thehistoryoftheweb.com | 4 years ago