Boom to Bust - Where have all the websites gone?

This BBC article about some of the once big names of the Internet brought back memories for me. It is strange to think that most of my current students were only kids at the time, anything between 5 and 10 years old. They probably won't remember most of these. But for me, as one who was working in a new web industry as a brand new web and graphic designer, many of these were the every day names we saw as examples of success.

It is interesting to see that not one of those names survives today.

For students of web design now, it is well worth looking at these early examples to see how things have changed (technology), and how some things have not (usability issues and big corporation buy-outs).

It is also interesting to see how Boo.com might have survived if it were launched today. While back then the internet was too slow to cope with the technology they were trying to use, today it would be no bother. Too ahead of its time perhaps? Or too willing to ignore the constraints of the time? You decide - but the lessons are still important now.

Any way - enjoy the article:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/8568509.stm

And if you want to see what those sites might have looked like why not look them up in the Wayback Machine:

http://www.archive.org/