Before social media became synonymous with Facebook or Twitter and before Google became equivalent with research, the popular websites of today were not as advanced. Although the technology was not as advanced as it is today, this is how our beloved websites looked like, way back in the day.
Apple.com
To keep its loyal consumer base updated regarding the upcoming releases and other products, Apple launched their very own website in 1987. However, the look and feel of the website then and now are miles apart.
Yahoo
Founded by Stanford duo Jerry Yang and David Filo in 1994, Yahoo is the acronym for “Yet Another Hierarchical Officious Oracle.” Considered to be the first online navigational guide to the web, the original interface featured a simple search bar and hyperlinks to other websites but soon became a sleek, personalized news website.
eBay
Founded by Pierre Omidyar in 1995, eBay was originally supposed to be called AuctionWeb. Today, the company has an artificial intelligence powered shopping assistant and a market capitalization of $37.48 billion.
Amazon.com
Everyone who knows the story behind Amazon knows the online retail store was first started to sell books. The ecommerce giant of today first took root in 1995, however, the company now offers deals on almost everything.
Google
Launched in 1996, Google had a simple interface that it has continued to use to date. Google Founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin kept the user interface simply because they did not know HTML and were looking for a quick design.
Wikipedia
The online encyclopedia was registered by Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger on 15 January in 2001. Little has changed in the world’s fifth most popular website which receives a monthly readership of 495 million and 18 billion page views per month.
MySpace
The original social networking site, MySpace had a pretty bland original design. However, the site skyrocketed in terms of popularity between 2005 and 2008 after News Corp., acquired the company.
Facebook
Thefacebook, as it was called in 2004, was only available to Harvard University Students. The original interface featured a man’s face on the upper left hand corner of the site which was a digitally manipulated picture of Al Pacino.
YouTube
Video sharing website YouTube which shined a light on stars like Justin Bieber and hits like “Charlie bit my finger” was launched in 2005. The overall look, 12 years later still has a similar look and feel had a practically empty interface and no evidence of videos. The first video uploaded on the site was created by one of YouTube’s founders, Jawed Karim, and was titled “Me at the Zoo.”
Twitter
The microblogging social media website, Twitter, which gained popularity for its character limit was supposed to be called Twttr. The website had a barely recognizable design at the beginning and since then has changed their interface design at least six times.