
Early screenshots of Twitter ('06), Facebook ('05), and Tumblr ('07) - panabee
http://imgur.com/a/Sg8y7#0
======
patio11
On the more prosaic end of the scale:

Bingo Card Creator, circa early 2007: [http://www.bingocardcreator.com/old-
site/index.htm](http://www.bingocardcreator.com/old-site/index.htm)

It doesn't exactly scream "This will certainly sell a quarter million of
software, allow you to quit your day job, and fund your software business."

You'd find similar things floating around if you were to look at the early
history of most companies which are widely idolized in our space. Nobody ships
perfection on day 1. Luckily, customers are happy to pay for imperfect things.

~~~
nakkiel
Honestly, BCC is kind of a mistery around here.

~~~
naterator
Old people, man. And the people who take care of old people. I know it's not
typically HN target demographic, but old people need improvements in their
lives, too.

~~~
tptacek
Not old people. Teachers. The distinction is vitally important. BCC solves a
professional problem that teachers will pay money for. It's not about
entertainment.

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panabee
Initially, it doesn't matter how your product looks if people want it. It
would be cool to see early screenshots of other popular services like LinkedIn
and Dropbox. Proper credit goes to reddit user, cmdrNacho, as the link was
found here:
[http://www.reddit.com/r/startups/comments/1y1f3n/if_you_coul...](http://www.reddit.com/r/startups/comments/1y1f3n/if_you_could_give_yourself_one_piece_of_advice/)

------
pgsandstrom
Personally I really enjoy reading the first entry on wikipedia for now famous
sites. Especially I think facebooks first entry is charming.

Facebook:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Facebook&oldid=338...](http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Facebook&oldid=3388273)

Twitter:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Twitter&oldid=1074...](http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Twitter&oldid=107487409)

Tumblr:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Tumblr&oldid=27832...](http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Tumblr&oldid=278328098)

~~~
christiangenco
Oh whoa, I didn't realize Facebook let you see other students in your classes.
I wrote a program to do that my freshmen year for your Facebook friends.

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nostrademons
Google, circa 1998 (I think it was actually mid-1999):

[http://www.google.com/search?q=google+in+1998](http://www.google.com/search?q=google+in+1998)

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photorized
Two observations:

1\. How's simple (one could say crude) these looked back in the day - yet that
didn't prevent people from signing up.

2\. How quickly things age online - it only takes a few years for your UI to
look ancient.

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kosei
Note the prominence of the Invite button on each. On Twitter it's in bright
red in the header, Facebook also in the header and for Tumblr it's right below
the profile.

------
brador
I regret not taking a screenshot of [http://skimfeed.com](http://skimfeed.com)
at the start. Then I made some DB changes and now I can't remember the colors
I used. So it's all weird and orange.

Tip for startups: save! And get that DB right first time.

~~~
jaredsohn
archive.org can help with this, too. The earliest for your site is:
[https://web.archive.org/web/20120908180933/http://skimfeed.c...](https://web.archive.org/web/20120908180933/http://skimfeed.com/),
which is within a day of when your twitter account was created.

(although this might not be early enough and generally people shouldn't rely
on archive.org caching their site.)

~~~
brador
Yeah i've seen the archive, but that was around iteration 3. Is there anything
that snapshots or caches websites that hit HN?

~~~
jaredsohn
Couldn't find anything during a quick search.

If you do a Google image search for 'skimfeed' you'll find screenshots for
when it was written up on various sites. (although images might not be as
ideal as HTML the screenshots might not include what you are looking for).

~~~
brador
Never thought to do that! Thanks.

