

How 20 Popular Websites Looked When They Launched  - zengr
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/6125914/How-20-popular-websites-looked-when-they-launched.html

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foopub
the linked page is blog spam. The content is taken from an earlier Daily
Telegraph article without attribution:

[http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/6125914/How-20-popular...](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/6125914/How-20-popular-
websites-looked-when-they-launched.html)

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ceejayoz
I've seen earlier screenshots of Amazon.com than that one.
[http://www.telco2.net/blog/images/amazon%20early%20screen%20...](http://www.telco2.net/blog/images/amazon%20early%20screen%20shot%20nov%202009.jpg)

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rkowalick
I was also suspicious of the Amazon homepage. I seem to recall that they
didn't even sell music until after they purchased CDNow.

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dmotz
Most of these (e.g. Twitter, Flickr) are inaccurate since they're simply using
the Wayback Machine which often misses css and images, completely changing the
appearance.

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fferen
Wikipedia strongly reminded me of WikiWikiWeb,
<http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?WelcomeVisitors>. I actually kind of prefer this
sparser look, at least for things that don't have a strong visual aspect.

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garethsprice
Aside from the inspiration via how quickly knocked together some of these
look, it's interesting to see early directions that have since been abandoned,
eg: YouTube's dating site style "I am a $gender looking for $gender" drop-
down.

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callmeed
I would say that Amazon and Drudge look the most "recognizable" between then
and now (with Google a close 3rd).

I wonder if that's simply because they haven't done a major pivot like many of
the others.

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jaspero
The design for Twitter that launched in 2006 looks pretty ugly. I am sure
there were better designs in 2006. It looks like 1995.

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technomancy
Twitter wasn't even called Twitter when it launched; it was twttr, and it had
a pretty hideous logo: <http://www.flickr.com/photos/factoryjoe/190576959/>

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wayneyeager
This reinforces Reid Hoffman's maxim that if you're not embarrassed when you
launch version 1, you spent too much time on it.

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burke
Amazon hasn't changed much.

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vijayr
craigslist hasn't changed much either, it is still ugly. BBC looked good
though.

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cnorgate
Ha ha ha - Amazon hasn't changed! They're still stuck in 1995 UI / UX.

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ceejayoz
They have
([http://www.telco2.net/blog/images/amazon%20early%20screen%20...](http://www.telco2.net/blog/images/amazon%20early%20screen%20shot%20nov%202009.jpg))
but once they found something that worked well it makes sense they'd stick
with it. A pretty design that causes a 1% drop in sales would be pretty
stupid, and I'm sure they've A/B tested such things.

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smashing
Damnit. I want an eMate 300 now.

