5 ms·
There were several iterations of commercialization that took away the quaintness of the internet, little by little. But some innovations along the way also cou
by DarknessFalls 5y ago
There were several iterations of commercialization that took away the quaintness of the internet, little by little. But some innovations along the way also counterbalanced it with new ways for content producers to express themselves.
When Flash was originally released (by Macromedia), there were so many unique sites with really great interfaces. Nowadays, everything seems to follow the long, scrolling mono design. I loved what people could create in those early days of Flash without the restrictions of html. There are some sites I wish I could go back and revisit because they would be impressive by today's standards.
Before MySpace, there was some personalization with Angelfire and Geocities. Every once in a while, you'd find a really interesting site that someone had created.
That era around '95, '96 is probably what I miss the most.
- holler 5y ago> I loved what people could create in those early days of Flash without the restrictions of html. I still remember the first time I discovered http://eye4u.com http://eye4u.com and watched their incredible flash intro. At the time I thought it was one of, if not the best flash intro on the web, and it instilled a sense excitement for what was possible with Flash. I agree it was refreshing and exciting to see all of the creative designs and ideas one could express using Flash. If only they hadn't added those pesky "skip intro" buttons! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hOUw2tF7agM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hOUw2tF7agM
- DarknessFalls 5y agoDennis Interactive was the site I would go back and visit again and again, picking apart the way they handled transitions and animated text. https://youtu.be/Z3PbiIUrZRc https://youtu.be/Z3PbiIUrZRc
- holler 5y agoSo cool! I love "this site features music by Hive". Flash really unlocked the creative potential for UI design, which these days feels increasingly banal. It made UI more of an "experience" with sites like this.
- asdff 5y agoI think the shift to platformization was the biggest death knell. Up to around 2007 or so it was common for people and companies to have their own websites or blogs. Then everyone jumped into someone else platform, and today we've been riding on third party platforms for so long that people don't even bother with visiting or making independent websites at all. Some people don't even search the internet, they just search facebook.com.