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>> I used to enjoy picking a subject and then clicking all the DMOZ or Yahoo! links. I'd dig through webrings and and link aggregators with wild abandon. Yep,

>> I used to enjoy picking a subject and then clicking all the DMOZ or Yahoo! links. I'd dig through webrings and and link aggregators with wild abandon. Yep, that's exactly what I used to do. That's really what "surfing the web" meant back in those days -- that you would spend hours just clicking links, seeing where they would take you. And of course, they would quite often take you to completely unexpected but cool things that you never would have found or even thought to look for otherwise.

emodendroket 9y ago
Is that any different from spending an hour finding links on Wikipedia or HN or Reddit or Facebook or whatever you're into?
- jackyinger 9y ago
  Invested effort yields quality. It was/is different: folks who are excited enough about something to build a website to share it have more interesting and deep content than you typically find on social media. These days The same goes for people with personal blogs (or website) as opposed to medium and other one design blogging platforms.
- Boothroid 9y ago
  People don't seem to build personal websites in the same way anymore - back then they weren't doing it to generate clicks, page views, passive income, build their profile etc, and everything wasn't all slickly styled and presented on a modern blogging platform. As a result websites were more amateurish, idiosyncratic, original, and sometimes charming, and I think the essence of the creator's motivation or interests often came across more strongly. The web doesn't have the same magic it used to for me. My god though some things were crap about it back in the day. If only we could have have kept the old web preserved alongside the new.
  - krapp 9y ago
    The thing is, people do build personal websites, and that old web still exists. Do you really believe that, with (according to Quora) ~140,000 new sites being created per day, no one is putting amateur, personal stuff on the web anymore? It's just that the web has gotten bigger and more mainstream, and most of us now limit our browsing to a few silos and then act as if everything that no longer bubbles up the filter must have ceased to exist.
    - Boothroid 9y ago
      But so many personal websites are just self promotion of one kind or another, and that's fine, we all have to make a living, but I'd far rather read something where someone just wants to share what they know/love. And everything looks like the same set of off the shelf web design templates. I liked the weirdness of the old web. Kind of like games on the Amiga, every site was different, and that was part of the charm. But perhaps you are right. Any tips on how to find the new gems?
      - krapp 9y ago
        >Any tips on how to find the new gems? That's a good question - I don't know. Discovery of anything not SEO optimized is difficult, and a lot of that content was on Geocities and Tripod, so the modern equivalent might just as likely be on Wordpress or a service like Wix, making the design homogeneous even if the content isn't. Ironically, I've found most off the beaten path sites through references in Youtube videos and Reddit. When I was getting my CS degree, the web design class involved building a quick personal site, so URLs connected to colleges might also be a good place to look. But what's more likely, that no one is writing their own custom HTML sites anymore, or that some people are, but we just can't see them because they exist in their own ecosystems beyond the Googlesphere (and possibly even the Anglosphere?) ...I just realized I'm vaguely arguing for (but not defining the parameters of) a Drake Equation for the web, where N is new personal content. Even if the parameters are low, the scale of the web means N should be significant.
      - djur 9y ago
        My recollection is that for every interesting personal website with carefully compiled albeit idiosyncratic information, there were 10 sites along the lines of "Mikey's Ultimate Web Site!!!" with animated "under construction" GIFs, marquee tags, a guestbook script, and about ten webrings. For better or worse, the closest thing today to the feeling of the old personal webpage era is Tumblr. The kids get up to some crazy stuff over there.
- nickpsecurity 9y ago
  The stuff I submit to HN or comment on that wows people often came from me digging into websites you dont find with a quick Google. Esp academic web sites or just those made by smart folks with odd little organization schemes. Im guessing same was true for some of the more obscure, but valuable, stuff I see others submit or bring up.
sebtoast 9y ago
Some websites used to have a "webring" where they would link to each other and you could just click on "next" and it would take you to another site on the same topic. I used to like those.

emodendroket 9y ago

Is that any different from spending an hour finding links on Wikipedia or HN or Reddit or Facebook or whatever you're into?

jackyinger 9y ago
Invested effort yields quality. It was/is different: folks who are excited enough about something to build a website to share it have more interesting and deep content than you typically find on social media. These days The same goes for people with personal blogs (or website) as opposed to medium and other one design blogging platforms.
Boothroid 9y ago
People don't seem to build personal websites in the same way anymore - back then they weren't doing it to generate clicks, page views, passive income, build their profile etc, and everything wasn't all slickly styled and presented on a modern blogging platform. As a result websites were more amateurish, idiosyncratic, original, and sometimes charming, and I think the essence of the creator's motivation or interests often came across more strongly. The web doesn't have the same magic it used to for me. My god though some things were crap about it back in the day. If only we could have have kept the old web preserved alongside the new.
- krapp 9y ago
  The thing is, people do build personal websites, and that old web still exists. Do you really believe that, with (according to Quora) ~140,000 new sites being created per day, no one is putting amateur, personal stuff on the web anymore? It's just that the web has gotten bigger and more mainstream, and most of us now limit our browsing to a few silos and then act as if everything that no longer bubbles up the filter must have ceased to exist.
  - Boothroid 9y ago
    But so many personal websites are just self promotion of one kind or another, and that's fine, we all have to make a living, but I'd far rather read something where someone just wants to share what they know/love. And everything looks like the same set of off the shelf web design templates. I liked the weirdness of the old web. Kind of like games on the Amiga, every site was different, and that was part of the charm. But perhaps you are right. Any tips on how to find the new gems?
    - krapp 9y ago
      >Any tips on how to find the new gems? That's a good question - I don't know. Discovery of anything not SEO optimized is difficult, and a lot of that content was on Geocities and Tripod, so the modern equivalent might just as likely be on Wordpress or a service like Wix, making the design homogeneous even if the content isn't. Ironically, I've found most off the beaten path sites through references in Youtube videos and Reddit. When I was getting my CS degree, the web design class involved building a quick personal site, so URLs connected to colleges might also be a good place to look. But what's more likely, that no one is writing their own custom HTML sites anymore, or that some people are, but we just can't see them because they exist in their own ecosystems beyond the Googlesphere (and possibly even the Anglosphere?) ...I just realized I'm vaguely arguing for (but not defining the parameters of) a Drake Equation for the web, where N is new personal content. Even if the parameters are low, the scale of the web means N should be significant.
    - djur 9y ago
      My recollection is that for every interesting personal website with carefully compiled albeit idiosyncratic information, there were 10 sites along the lines of "Mikey's Ultimate Web Site!!!" with animated "under construction" GIFs, marquee tags, a guestbook script, and about ten webrings. For better or worse, the closest thing today to the feeling of the old personal webpage era is Tumblr. The kids get up to some crazy stuff over there.
nickpsecurity 9y ago
The stuff I submit to HN or comment on that wows people often came from me digging into websites you dont find with a quick Google. Esp academic web sites or just those made by smart folks with odd little organization schemes. Im guessing same was true for some of the more obscure, but valuable, stuff I see others submit or bring up.

sebtoast 9y ago

Some websites used to have a "webring" where they would link to each other and you could just click on "next" and it would take you to another site on the same topic. I used to like those.