6 ms·

When talking about this, people often like to joke about the webdesign back then. But the personal websites had personality. Facebook profiles feel like governm

When talking about this, people often like to joke about the webdesign back then. But the personal websites had personality. Facebook profiles feel like government forms to me... "here, fill in this standardized array of fields with your personal data."

baby 9y ago
I need to write a love letter to Flash and how it made every website look like a christmas tree. There was so much life in there, it was a race to dynamism when we didn’t know how to make things dynamic. Now it’s all about flat design and static pages and don’t make the users learn a new UI and use the same CSS framework everybody else is using.
- marban 9y ago
  I don't miss Flash but the jaw-dropping impression when visiting Gabo for the first time. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Y-ESJS911c https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Y-ESJS911c
  - brianwawok 9y ago
    That was some cutting edge stuff The first 3 times you saw it ;)
  - Reedx 9y ago
    Wow, I remember that! I was amazed by it at the time. It was absolutely top notch. But seeing it now has kind of ruined my memory of it, heh. Like replaying a video game from when I was a kid. But it's interesting to see just how much the standard for design has changed in a relatively short time.
  - nsgi 9y ago
    DVD menus are annoying enough when you're trying to watch a film, and they're supposed to be entertaining. Can you imagine if every website was like that?
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
    - Reedx 9y ago
      It was almost like shortly after stuff like Gabocorp. It became a fad. Websites were adding flash intros like crazy for a while. Music too. And it was as awful as you imagine.
      - JasonFruit 9y ago
        I am so glad that died. There was a time when you couldn't open most businesses' websites on Linux because flash support was shaky and everyone relied on all of it.
  - dev360 9y ago
    Haha that site was what drove me to flash/actionscript. There was another site too that made 3d popular and I got rabbitholed exporting stuff from 3d studio max into flash. Complete waste of time - clients only wanted boring splash screens and you had to talk them out of it.
  - mirimir 9y ago
    That is sweet! And then there was hell.com and associated sites. But I find no video :( Basically, once you paid $100 to repurchase your soul, you got lifetime access, and a hell.com email address :)
    - noway421 9y ago
      On an unrelated note, that makes me think, why facebook won't make a paid subscription version? I would dearly pay 10-20 bucks per year or whatever they are getting from me and never see ads or get my data shared with advertisers.
      - madez 9y ago
        Then the people who didn't pay would feel as second-class citizens who can be scrutinized, analyzed, and their profiles sold. That awareness would be deadly for Facebook, because not enough people would be willing to pay.
      - kd5bjo 9y ago
        Advertisers only really care about showing ads to people with enough money to buy their products. An ad-free subscription lets these people remove themselves from the consumer pool, drastically reducing the value of their advertising product. Why take the chance of disrupting a system that's working for them?
  - martind81 9y ago
    Remember me of the Eye4U website as well :) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3aT4wt0fmGU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3aT4wt0fmGU
- ajmurmann 9y ago
  Hah, flat design and static except for the ads.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- codeulike 9y ago
  Dynamic stuff was in vogue when it was difficult to do. Same with rounded corners. Once stuff gets easy it goes out of fashion.
FreakyT 9y ago
I think MySpace ultimately represented the final form of the essentially unlimited customization of the early web. The terribleness of MySpace pages was, I believe, the catalyst that pushed the design trend in the opposite direction, resulting in the "standardized array of fields" as popularized by Facebook. That said, given the cyclical nature of design trends, I strongly suspect that we'll eventually start to see a gradual shift back toward customization, hopefully avoiding the ridiculous excesses of the MySpace era.
- adventured 9y ago
  Tumblr has never really lost its wide variety of customization. I'd argue it carried on the Geocities and MySpace individual touch. If you go from one personal tumblr to the next, they often vary to a great degree in atmosphere, color scheme, content posted, purpose, layout, etc. You also still see all the expected bizarre design choices, broken layouts, etc. that one would expect given that. Being able to customize it to a large enough degree to give a sense of one's personality, was one of tumblr's primary appeals to its large younger userbase.
  - aaron987 9y ago
    Though it might also be worth mentioning that Tumblr is a total pain in the * to use precisely because of that customization. Every dang page is different and I never know what to click. Worse, Tumblr is so slow that every wrong click is an expensive loss of time and patience. On the rare occasion that I find a Tumblr worth following, I just use the RSS feed because the site is too frustrating.
- MisterTea 9y ago
  Agreed. There were people who were using templates for their Myspace pages that were hideous. Facebook felt much more uniform and focused on the content (posts) rather than frivolous glitz. But today, I'm off Facebook and any other large centralized social platforms. In the suture if I decide to publish articles or blog posts then I'm going back to the personal web page.
- pkilgore 9y ago
tomdre 9y ago
Jaron Lanier's "You Are Not a Gadget" has some nice thought about this point, claiming that the web in the 90s was a way more creative and personal space than today.
Navarr 9y ago
When I wrote Route50.net with a friend, we tried to keep that somewhat alive - to either good or terrible consequences. Route50.net has: * Moveable widgets * Easy theme styling * Optional complete CSS customization And then, since one of the main points was an artistic gallery - we allowed users to share their CSS in the gallery, and other users could preview it and install it Ex: http://route50.net/base/navarr http://route50.net/base/navarr http://route50.net/base/navarr?style=12675 http://route50.net/base/navarr?style=12675
1337biz 9y ago
I still have that feeling about Facebook. It looks and acts like the central web registry authority.

baby 9y ago

I need to write a love letter to Flash and how it made every website look like a christmas tree. There was so much life in there, it was a race to dynamism when we didn’t know how to make things dynamic. Now it’s all about flat design and static pages and don’t make the users learn a new UI and use the same CSS framework everybody else is using.

marban 9y ago
I don't miss Flash but the jaw-dropping impression when visiting Gabo for the first time. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Y-ESJS911c https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Y-ESJS911c
- brianwawok 9y ago
  That was some cutting edge stuff The first 3 times you saw it ;)
- Reedx 9y ago
  Wow, I remember that! I was amazed by it at the time. It was absolutely top notch. But seeing it now has kind of ruined my memory of it, heh. Like replaying a video game from when I was a kid. But it's interesting to see just how much the standard for design has changed in a relatively short time.
- nsgi 9y ago
  DVD menus are annoying enough when you're trying to watch a film, and they're supposed to be entertaining. Can you imagine if every website was like that?
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - Reedx 9y ago
    It was almost like shortly after stuff like Gabocorp. It became a fad. Websites were adding flash intros like crazy for a while. Music too. And it was as awful as you imagine.
    - JasonFruit 9y ago
      I am so glad that died. There was a time when you couldn't open most businesses' websites on Linux because flash support was shaky and everyone relied on all of it.
- dev360 9y ago
  Haha that site was what drove me to flash/actionscript. There was another site too that made 3d popular and I got rabbitholed exporting stuff from 3d studio max into flash. Complete waste of time - clients only wanted boring splash screens and you had to talk them out of it.
- mirimir 9y ago
  That is sweet! And then there was hell.com and associated sites. But I find no video :( Basically, once you paid $100 to repurchase your soul, you got lifetime access, and a hell.com email address :)
  - noway421 9y ago
    On an unrelated note, that makes me think, why facebook won't make a paid subscription version? I would dearly pay 10-20 bucks per year or whatever they are getting from me and never see ads or get my data shared with advertisers.
    - madez 9y ago
      Then the people who didn't pay would feel as second-class citizens who can be scrutinized, analyzed, and their profiles sold. That awareness would be deadly for Facebook, because not enough people would be willing to pay.
    - kd5bjo 9y ago
      Advertisers only really care about showing ads to people with enough money to buy their products. An ad-free subscription lets these people remove themselves from the consumer pool, drastically reducing the value of their advertising product. Why take the chance of disrupting a system that's working for them?
- martind81 9y ago
  Remember me of the Eye4U website as well :) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3aT4wt0fmGU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3aT4wt0fmGU
ajmurmann 9y ago
Hah, flat design and static except for the ads.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
codeulike 9y ago
Dynamic stuff was in vogue when it was difficult to do. Same with rounded corners. Once stuff gets easy it goes out of fashion.

FreakyT 9y ago

I think MySpace ultimately represented the final form of the essentially unlimited customization of the early web. The terribleness of MySpace pages was, I believe, the catalyst that pushed the design trend in the opposite direction, resulting in the "standardized array of fields" as popularized by Facebook. That said, given the cyclical nature of design trends, I strongly suspect that we'll eventually start to see a gradual shift back toward customization, hopefully avoiding the ridiculous excesses of the MySpace era.

adventured 9y ago
Tumblr has never really lost its wide variety of customization. I'd argue it carried on the Geocities and MySpace individual touch. If you go from one personal tumblr to the next, they often vary to a great degree in atmosphere, color scheme, content posted, purpose, layout, etc. You also still see all the expected bizarre design choices, broken layouts, etc. that one would expect given that. Being able to customize it to a large enough degree to give a sense of one's personality, was one of tumblr's primary appeals to its large younger userbase.
- aaron987 9y ago
  Though it might also be worth mentioning that Tumblr is a total pain in the * to use precisely because of that customization. Every dang page is different and I never know what to click. Worse, Tumblr is so slow that every wrong click is an expensive loss of time and patience. On the rare occasion that I find a Tumblr worth following, I just use the RSS feed because the site is too frustrating.
MisterTea 9y ago
Agreed. There were people who were using templates for their Myspace pages that were hideous. Facebook felt much more uniform and focused on the content (posts) rather than frivolous glitz. But today, I'm off Facebook and any other large centralized social platforms. In the suture if I decide to publish articles or blog posts then I'm going back to the personal web page.
pkilgore 9y ago

tomdre 9y ago

Jaron Lanier's "You Are Not a Gadget" has some nice thought about this point, claiming that the web in the 90s was a way more creative and personal space than today.

Navarr 9y ago

When I wrote Route50.net with a friend, we tried to keep that somewhat alive - to either good or terrible consequences. Route50.net has: * Moveable widgets * Easy theme styling * Optional complete CSS customization And then, since one of the main points was an artistic gallery - we allowed users to share their CSS in the gallery, and other users could preview it and install it Ex: http://route50.net/base/navarr http://route50.net/base/navarr http://route50.net/base/navarr?style=12675 http://route50.net/base/navarr?style=12675

1337biz 9y ago

I still have that feeling about Facebook. It looks and acts like the central web registry authority.