

The Top 50 Websites by Traffic in 1998 - umiaq
http://www.geekosystem.com/1998-web-traffic-stats/

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matrix
All I can think of when I see this list is massive missed business
opportunities. Quite a few of those business have absolutely no excuse for
squandering their first-mover advantage (mapquest, altavista, etc).

Which is great because it makes me more confident of being able to overcome an
established player in the market today.

~~~
inerte
There are good excuses, like browser capabilities, broadband, % of users
online, ad serving platforms, ad agencies, mobile usage, knowledgable
people/employees. Heck, I could go on and on and on.

There was absolute no way for Google Maps to have happened in 1999, the
strongest evidence being that it didn't happen in 1999.

~~~
RyanMcGreal
True but irrelevant. When Google Maps _did_ happen, there's no reason why
MapQuest could not have built the same thing at the same time.

The fact that they didn't, and that Google did, suggests opportunities for
upstarts (sorry, startups) to get the jump on established players by
introducing disruptive innovations.

~~~
potatolicious
Not to mention the fact that MapQuest took _years_ to come out with something
that even comes close to the user experience of Google Maps, which suggests to
me that GMaps completely broadsided them, and that they didn't have anything
remotely close to that sophistication even considered/researched.

It seems to be, as an outsider anyways, that MapQuest got lazy, not just out-
done by Google.

~~~
pchristensen
Exactly, forgiveable that MapQuest didn't invent Google Maps, unforgiveable
that it they kept the same ugly static maps for _years_ after GMaps.

~~~
borism
well, all this is true... but at least MapQuest is still around (since 1967).
And I don't think GOOG makes any significant $ from maps yet.

Perhaps you tried to say that in 90s they should have tried to make a better
search engine instead, apply advertising business model to it, make a lot of
money... and then proceed to make the best maps on web by deploying those
profits?

Because otherwise I don't see how MapQuest could have done it.

~~~
pchristensen
They worked on their business, not their technology. Since they were in the
_mapping business_ , they might have invested more $ into their _mapping
product_.

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philwelch
A _lot_ of free web hosts. What I remember most about those days is how many
people just created web pages about Star Trek or something, threw it up on a
free web host (or even their ISP's web hosting), and sometimes even kept it
updated. Now we have Facebook and Posterous and Wikia, but all of that tries
to fit it in a box, to make it easy or private or constrained to the form of a
blog or wiki or whatever. Back in the day you just wrote HTML files (there was
even a form on Geocities to write an HTML file in your browser) and you
weren't constrained to any real form.

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turnersauce
I feel as though a table may have been a more appropriate way to present that
data...

~~~
chronomex
More readable, certainly.

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vaksel
some of them just changed the urls.

i.e. "BLUEMOUNTAINARTS.COM" is now actually just bluemountain.com not a #9
site...but still not 18 million either

~~~
thiele
Agreed. CDnow, for example, was acquired by Amazon, so their traffic ranking
is meaningless too. I still have a soft spot in my heart for CDnow :)

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agentq
It's good to see that the public's relative need for weather(.com) forecasts
has not changed in the last twelve years.

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ilamont
Blue Mountain Arts. Was anyone else here one of the millions who saw Internet
greeting cards as a great idea?

What were we thinking?

~~~
gojomo
In a way, they were -- they're just now called 'virtual gifts' and 'wall
posts' and 'app notifications'.

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phillaf
Bonzi.com still ranks #1 in my heart.

~~~
mortenjorck
I'll always wonder what percentage of those uniques were actually user-
initiated.

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billturner
Related is a recent post on waxy.org with a list of the top 100 websites of
1999:
[http://waxy.org/2010/02/dennet_and_the_top_100_websites_of_1...](http://waxy.org/2010/02/dennet_and_the_top_100_websites_of_1999/)

~~~
vaksel
#90 911 Gifts - ouch...wonder if these guys got killed by 9/11 or if they
crashed before that

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rcfox
(Comment here because I can't be bothered to create a login on every random
website just to comment.)

How are aol.com and yahoo.com both ranked #3 in 2010?

~~~
kanwisher
He fixed it, its now crossed through.

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alexyim
Whoa angelfire.com

It's like it's been in a time capsule

