The early web was driven by curiosity, openness, and play, not monetization. Creativity flourished because experimentation was encouraged.
Creator Audrey Witters reflects on that era, using her now-famous animated alien GIF as an example of how playful, freely-shared work helped shape digital culture—and why preserving it still matters.
Learn more ⤵️ https://blog.archive.org/2025/12/22/audrey-witters/
TypePad is shutting down with less than 40 days' notice https://everything.typepad.com/blog/2025/08/typepad-is-shutting-down.html
Back in 2008, Typepad already encouraged bloggers to promote email subscriptions (although it was a few years before it was easy to send some posts only to paying subscribers). So Substack is entirely marketing, rebranding the email newsletter as cool and new and throwing money at some writers. https://everything.typepad.com/blog/2009/11/feedburner-typepad-email.html #stateOfTheWeb #earlyWeb #typepad
Netscape it's rise, fall, and eventual revenge
Adobe PageMill 2.0
#RetroTech #90sComputing #DigitalNostalgia #OldSchoolTech #TechThrowback #1990sTech #EarlyWeb
"There were no books on web design, no best practices."
https://thehistoryoftheweb.com/the-innovative-designs-of-1995/
@william_shotts Shortly after I tried out Mosaic (the first publicly available web browser) for the first time, I was in the university computer Sun lab and a guy was showing his girlfriend the web.
She asked "what is this?" and he said "it's like Gopher, but for lazy people."
That always stuck with me.
The Retro Computing Roundtable podcast, of which I am one of several hosts, offers its contents via Gopher (...and the web, too).
A great follow-up from @Jayhoffmann!
"1995 was the web’s single most important inflection point."
https://thehistoryoftheweb.com/1995-was-the-most-important-year-for-the-web/
"As the internet became more interactive over 1995, it became a more attractive place for musicians to set up a web presence. David Bowie was one of the first to do this."
Maronno Winchester
internetarchive
bookandswordblog
Retrobytes
Retro Techie
Stefan Bohacek
Blake Patterson
