4 ms·

Booting Up: Zuck’s First Website Was Just as Embarrassing as Yours

27 points by swohns 14y ago

INTPenis 14y ago
Wasn't so bad, it's just bad if you didn't live through that era of angelfire/tripod/geocities. Seeing a site like this would be quite a relief for me. No crazy frames, or bad graphics, clean, functional, to the point.
- rebyn 14y ago
  The logo, or what it seems, to me is a really 'bad' graphic.
  - INTPenis 14y ago
    Yes but I suspect the mismatched gray is from a lack of background color and use of a different browser.
- swohns 14y ago
  I agree, the lack of an animated gif background is a relative sign of taste and restraint in the angelfire era.
lost_name 14y ago
The Beatbeat link is just a series of links -- this is the actual story: http://gizmodo.com/5993535 http://gizmodo.com/5993535
- bru 14y ago
  Thank you for the link, this one actually has a worth. However, I think it is too derisive. I found "the Web" page interesting. 4 years before "The Facebook", it seems like the idea of showing real-life people connections was already vivid in his mind. Direct link to Mark's website: http://www.angelfire.com/ny/mez51/ http://www.angelfire.com/ny/mez51/
amackera 14y ago
News flash! Successful people are just like everybody else. Zuckerberg was not born a hacker wizard.
smackfu 14y ago
A few years earlier, and the only copy of this stuff would have been on a 3.5" floppy.
yread 14y ago
Originally found on Hacker news: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5486014 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5486014
losethos 14y ago
God says... sake I will not rest, until the righteousness thereof go forth as brightness, and the salvation thereof as a lamp that burneth. 62:2 And the Gentiles shall see thy righteousness, and all kings thy glory: and thou shalt be called by a new name, which the mouth of the LORD shall name. 62:3 Thou shalt also be a crown of glory in the hand of the LORD, and a royal diadem in the hand of thy God. 62:4 Thou shalt no more be termed Forsaken; neither shall thy land any more be termed Desolate: but thou shalt be called Hephzibah, and thy land Beulah: for the LORD delighteth in thee, and thy land shall be married. 62:5 For as a young man marrieth a virgin, so shall thy sons marry thee: and as the bridegroom rejoiceth over the bride, so shall thy God rejoice over thee.
jahansafd 14y ago
err whatsup with the freemason-like one eye
mistercow 14y ago
If he created those various Java applets, then no, his first website was not just as embarrassing as mine.
Goranek 14y ago
Am I the only one who thinks this isn't embarrassing at all? Title is retarded. People are forgetting that technology 15 years ago wasn't like today. Oh and he was a kid. To me this site is cool, and it brings good memories of old web.
Nursie 14y ago
Hmm... so many thoughts. Mainly though - Here is the legacy of everything remembered forever. Anyone that gets big or rich or famous from now onwards will have had some sort of footprint on the web, and people will find it. The big question is whether we start judging people harshly based on this (as we do with politicians already) or if we as a society can finally mature, move on, and allow people to have a past.
altcognito 14y ago
I miss Brendan Eich's satire homepage. Brendan is on here. Whatever happened to that?
bdcravens 14y ago
I cut my teeth on Geocities in 1996. Frustrated by the limitations of their in-browser editor, I decided to go hard-core and do all my HTML in Notepad :-) I graduated to HotDog Pro and Homesite in short order. Of course, I had the requisite star field background, animated gifs, and requisite <blink> tags. However, is this a typical path? Today I'd guess many build "sites" using Tumblr, Blogger, or Wordpress before picking up development skills. Even those stumbling through Rails or the like can drop in Twitter Bootstrap with little fanfare and have a pretty decent looking first effort.
nemrow 14y ago
Who do you think I should report bugs to for this site? Do you think Themarke51@aol.com still goes to Mr. Zuck? I found a few IE8 bugs.... :)
jiggy2011 14y ago
With the exception of the banner it's quite a usable website. A lot of websites in the late 90s looked like this, Web 2.0 huge buttons was not a thing yet (neither was CSS for the most part) and a huge background image would have taken days to load.
kalterstern 14y ago
And I bet that almost none of the companies who've just posted in the Who's Hiring? thread would have hired a young Mr. Zuckerberg on the basis of his coding chops (let alone his personality) either.

27 points by swohns 14y ago

Wasn't so bad, it's just bad if you didn't live through that era of angelfire/tripod/geocities. Seeing a site like this would be quite a relief for me. No crazy frames, or bad graphics, clean, functional, to the point.

rebyn 14y ago
The logo, or what it seems, to me is a really 'bad' graphic.
- INTPenis 14y ago
  Yes but I suspect the mismatched gray is from a lack of background color and use of a different browser.
swohns 14y ago
I agree, the lack of an animated gif background is a relative sign of taste and restraint in the angelfire era.

lost_name 14y ago

The Beatbeat link is just a series of links -- this is the actual story: http://gizmodo.com/5993535 http://gizmodo.com/5993535

bru 14y ago
Thank you for the link, this one actually has a worth. However, I think it is too derisive. I found "the Web" page interesting. 4 years before "The Facebook", it seems like the idea of showing real-life people connections was already vivid in his mind. Direct link to Mark's website: http://www.angelfire.com/ny/mez51/ http://www.angelfire.com/ny/mez51/

amackera 14y ago

News flash! Successful people are just like everybody else. Zuckerberg was not born a hacker wizard.

smackfu 14y ago

A few years earlier, and the only copy of this stuff would have been on a 3.5" floppy.

yread 14y ago

Originally found on Hacker news: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5486014 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5486014

losethos 14y ago

God says... sake I will not rest, until the righteousness thereof go forth as brightness, and the salvation thereof as a lamp that burneth. 62:2 And the Gentiles shall see thy righteousness, and all kings thy glory: and thou shalt be called by a new name, which the mouth of the LORD shall name. 62:3 Thou shalt also be a crown of glory in the hand of the LORD, and a royal diadem in the hand of thy God. 62:4 Thou shalt no more be termed Forsaken; neither shall thy land any more be termed Desolate: but thou shalt be called Hephzibah, and thy land Beulah: for the LORD delighteth in thee, and thy land shall be married. 62:5 For as a young man marrieth a virgin, so shall thy sons marry thee: and as the bridegroom rejoiceth over the bride, so shall thy God rejoice over thee.

jahansafd 14y ago

err whatsup with the freemason-like one eye

mistercow 14y ago

If he created those various Java applets, then no, his first website was not just as embarrassing as mine.

Goranek 14y ago

Am I the only one who thinks this isn't embarrassing at all? Title is retarded. People are forgetting that technology 15 years ago wasn't like today. Oh and he was a kid. To me this site is cool, and it brings good memories of old web.

Nursie 14y ago

Hmm... so many thoughts. Mainly though - Here is the legacy of everything remembered forever. Anyone that gets big or rich or famous from now onwards will have had some sort of footprint on the web, and people will find it. The big question is whether we start judging people harshly based on this (as we do with politicians already) or if we as a society can finally mature, move on, and allow people to have a past.

altcognito 14y ago

I miss Brendan Eich's satire homepage. Brendan is on here. Whatever happened to that?

bdcravens 14y ago

I cut my teeth on Geocities in 1996. Frustrated by the limitations of their in-browser editor, I decided to go hard-core and do all my HTML in Notepad :-) I graduated to HotDog Pro and Homesite in short order. Of course, I had the requisite star field background, animated gifs, and requisite <blink> tags. However, is this a typical path? Today I'd guess many build "sites" using Tumblr, Blogger, or Wordpress before picking up development skills. Even those stumbling through Rails or the like can drop in Twitter Bootstrap with little fanfare and have a pretty decent looking first effort.

nemrow 14y ago

Who do you think I should report bugs to for this site? Do you think Themarke51@aol.com still goes to Mr. Zuck? I found a few IE8 bugs.... :)

jiggy2011 14y ago

With the exception of the banner it's quite a usable website. A lot of websites in the late 90s looked like this, Web 2.0 huge buttons was not a thing yet (neither was CSS for the most part) and a huge background image would have taken days to load.

kalterstern 14y ago

And I bet that almost none of the companies who've just posted in the Who's Hiring? thread would have hired a young Mr. Zuckerberg on the basis of his coding chops (let alone his personality) either.