Tony Sarno02 October 2008, 7:03 PM
To mark its tenth birthday Google has resurrected its 2001 index. You can Google yourself and your friends to see what the world was like seven years ago.
We knew Google would do something quirky for its 10th birthday and it hasn't disappointed. It has brought back its index from 2001, a snapshot of the internet as it was in January that year. Google picked 2001 rather than 1998 because it was the first year with a complete, archived index.
On its FAQ about the 2001 index, Google says: "earlier versions of our index aren't readily accessible. But we did still want to offer users a chance to search an older index as a way of looking back at web history, and the January 2001 index is the best we can do. We hope you enjoy it. "
What Google has done might be fun, but it's also historically extraordinary. Much of what was on the web then has disappeared and this is an opportunity to easily find it again.
I looked for APC -- because we don't have a copy of the site as it was then -- and promptly
found it. Some image were missing but most of the pages and content were there. What immediately hits you looking at sites back then is how design was held captive by the 800x600 pixel rule and the slow connections of dialup or early broadband. The web design of Microsoft's home page reflects this. Compare its
2001 design with the
current one. Or Adobe's
2001 home page with the spectacular
2008 version.
Speaking of smartphones, I searched for "iPhone," sure I wouldn't find any references to it. But, surprisingly, there
was an iPhone in 2001 (pictured left). It just wasn't as sexy, an office phone made by InfoGear, a company that had just been aquired by Cisco. The modern day iPhone's competitor, the Blackberry, was already around in January 2001, with its website promoting the device as the "wireless email that means business."
Back in 2001 Wordpress was not the wildly popular blogging engine, but a US poetry publisher. Facebook didn't exist, and a list of top blogs (mostly known as weblogs back then) turned up ones that have mostly vanished.
If you find any fascinating time capsules in your
searching of Google's 2001 index post a comment to let other readers know. In the meantime, I'll go and 2001 Google myself and my friends.