Lingolol

Jake in the desertWebrings are still around, and <a href="https://front-end.social/@sarajw" class="u-url mention" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">@sarajw</a> tipped me off to this large, essentially comprehensive list of them, here: <a href="https://brisray.com/web/webring-list.htm" rel="nofollow noopener" translate="no" target="_blank">https://brisray.com/web/webring-list.htm</a>. This site lists over 400 webrings that are linked to over 16,000 websites total. Any kind of interest you may have, you'll probably be able to find a webring for it here. The same site also has a great history of webrings, what they are, and how they started, here: <a href="https://brisray.com/web/webring-history.htm" rel="nofollow noopener" translate="no" target="_blank">https://brisray.com/web/webring-history.htm</a><a href="https://c.im/tags/webring" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#webring</a> <a href="https://c.im/tags/webrings" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#webrings</a> <a href="https://c.im/tags/WebHistory" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#WebHistory</a> <a href="https://c.im/tags/InternetHistory" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#InternetHistory</a>

Richard MacManusIn 1999, David Bowie starred in a 3D game about a hacker attacked by a demon in meatspace, who then escapes into the Omikron network. “An old legend recounts that only a nomad soul can hunt the demons out of Omikron,” he says in the introduction. The music became his album 'hours...', but in retrospect the video game didn't quite match the likes of Everquest and Ultima Online for "human presence." <a href="https://cybercultural.com/p/bowie-1999-omikron/" rel="nofollow noopener" translate="no" target="_blank">https://cybercultural.com/p/bowie-1999-omikron/</a> <a href="https://mastodon.social/tags/InternetHistory" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#InternetHistory</a> <a href="https://mastodon.social/tags/BowieForever" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#BowieForever</a>

Hambone FakenamingtonThe writing was on the wall when <a href="https://know.me.uk/tags/BT" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#BT</a>/#Openreach started enabling the villages for ADSL... but what accelerated the closure of the fixed wireless access service to the villages was <a href="https://know.me.uk/tags/Aramiska" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#Aramiska</a> going out of business, which would have left the service with no back-haul.<a href="https://www.thinkbroadband.com/news/2524-surprise-shutdown-of-aramiska-satellite-service" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">https://www.thinkbroadband.com/news/2524-surprise-shutdown-of-aramiska-satellite-service</a><a href="https://know.me.uk/tags/Altnets" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#Altnets</a> <a href="https://know.me.uk/tags/FWA" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#FWA</a> <a href="https://know.me.uk/tags/InternetHistory" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#InternetHistory</a>

Richard MacManusI take a look at how Online Identity has evolved through the years, from the fluid identities of BowieWorld to the neutered identity culture that Facebook introduced in the 2000s. David Bowie himself played with virtual personas (how could he not?!) and I also look at a 1999 book by US sociologist Sherry Turkle. <a href="https://cybercultural.com/p/online-identity-bowieworld-1999/" rel="nofollow noopener" translate="no" target="_blank">https://cybercultural.com/p/online-identity-bowieworld-1999/</a> <a href="https://mastodon.social/tags/InternetHistory" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#InternetHistory</a> <a href="https://mastodon.social/tags/OnlineIdentity" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#OnlineIdentity</a>

JKN<a href="https://mastodon.au/@quokka1" class="u-url mention" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">@quokka1</a> Wonder how it compares to the worst website in <a href="https://mastodon.online/tags/internethistory" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#internethistory</a>: ICQ.com

Richard MacManusContinuing my look back at the rise of Google, we're now in 1999. It's still a web world dominated by portals, but Google ("pure search" with "no portal litter," as one tech magazine put it) is starting to get noticed. <a href="https://cybercultural.com/p/google-1999/" rel="nofollow noopener" translate="no" target="_blank">https://cybercultural.com/p/google-1999/</a> <a href="https://mastodon.social/tags/InternetHistory" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#InternetHistory</a> <a href="https://mastodon.social/tags/Google1990s" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#Google1990s</a>

Richard MacManusIt's 1998, the middle of the dot-com boom. Portals are advertising on TV, web developers are fighting browser companies (but despite this, web design has achieved a harmony of form and function), Microsoft and Amazon are gaining power, Google is born, and Netscape is going open source. <a href="https://cybercultural.com/p/internet-1998/" rel="nofollow noopener" translate="no" target="_blank">https://cybercultural.com/p/internet-1998/</a> <a href="https://mastodon.social/tags/InternetHistory" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#InternetHistory</a>

fromjason.xyz ❤️ 💻November 2007— Mark Cuban pitches to <a href="https://mastodon.social/tags/Facebook" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#Facebook</a> an API that extends past the Facebook domain. He describes what would eventually become Facebook's Open Graph and Graph API, the catalysts to the <a href="https://mastodon.social/tags/CambridgeAnalytica" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#CambridgeAnalytica</a> scandal that would occur six years later. <a href="https://mastodon.social/tags/Meta" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#Meta</a> <a href="https://mastodon.social/tags/OpenSocialWeb" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#OpenSocialWeb</a> <a href="https://mastodon.social/tags/InternetHistory" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#InternetHistory</a>

Bob K Mertz :distressedUS:<a href="https://mastodon.archive.org/@internetarchive" class="u-url mention" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">@internetarchive</a> I was in my late teens and early 20s when Disney was doing this... It confused me because of all the redirecting and I actually remember thinking that it could be dangerous... I wondered who go.com was and why I ended up there. Had no inkling that domain redirection (misdirection?) would become the privacy and security nightmare it is today.<a href="https://techhub.social/tags/WaybackMachine" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#WaybackMachine</a> <a href="https://techhub.social/tags/InternetHistory" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#InternetHistory</a> <a href="https://techhub.social/tags/WebArchive" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#WebArchive</a> <a href="https://techhub.social/tags/SummerOnline" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#SummerOnline</a>

internetarchive☀️ Summer online in the late 90s? Disney hoped you’d start at Go․com.It launched in 1998 as a bold web portal strategy to unify Disney’s online presence—ESPN, ABC, Disney—all under one digital roof. But starting in 2001, it was gradually stripped of services & branding. Now it's just directs to a page about the Disney Company. Check out its short life with the <a href="https://mastodon.archive.org/tags/WaybackMachine" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#WaybackMachine</a> ➡️ <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20011116082714/http://go.com/" rel="nofollow noopener" translate="no" target="_blank">https://web.archive.org/web/20011116082714/http://go.com/</a> <a href="https://mastodon.archive.org/tags/InternetHistory" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#InternetHistory</a> <a href="https://mastodon.archive.org/tags/WebArchive" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#WebArchive</a> <a href="https://mastodon.archive.org/tags/SummerOnline" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#SummerOnline</a>

Richard MacManusAs search engines in 2025 shift from providing links to (AI) answers — and all the angst that is causing web publishers — I thought I'd take a look at what search engines were like in 1998...one year before Google became popular. At that time search was seen as just one part of the portal experience. But little did AltaVista know, it wouldn't be the center of attention on <a href="https://mastodon.social/@dannysullivan" class="u-url mention" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">@dannysullivan</a>'s Search Engine Watch for much longer. <a href="https://cybercultural.com/p/search-1998/" rel="nofollow noopener" translate="no" target="_blank">https://cybercultural.com/p/search-1998/</a> <a href="https://mastodon.social/tags/InternetHistory" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#InternetHistory</a> <a href="https://mastodon.social/tags/searchengines" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#searchengines</a>

Aashik J KrishnanNicola Pellow: The Quiet Hero of the WebAt 21, while still a student, she built the first cross-platform browser, letting the web go global. Then she disappeared.Who remembers her today? Almost no one.I wrote my longest post since 2016 to honour her and the quiet women who shaped tech.🔗 <a href="https://blogs.aashgates.com/index.php?post/2025/07/05/The-Unseen-Pioneer%3A-Nicola-Pellow-and-the-Dawn-of-the-Web" rel="nofollow noopener" translate="no" target="_blank">https://blogs.aashgates.com/index.php?post/2025/07/05/The-Unseen-Pioneer%3A-Nicola-Pellow-and-the-Dawn-of-the-Web</a><a href="https://mastodon.social/tags/TechHistory" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#TechHistory</a> <a href="https://mastodon.social/tags/WomenInTech" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#WomenInTech</a> <a href="https://mastodon.social/tags/InternetHistory" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#InternetHistory</a> <a href="https://mastodon.social/tags/AashGatesWrites" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#AashGatesWrites</a>

Richard MacManusA lot of e-commerce sites were really *busy* in that late 90s-early aughts era — i.e. loads of links. Their style obviously influenced by portals, and the tabs (a la Amazon) were a big trend too. <a href="https://mastodon.social/tags/InternetHistory" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#InternetHistory</a> <a href="https://indieweb.social/@classicweb/114788755359395779" rel="nofollow noopener" translate="no" target="_blank">https://indieweb.social/@classicweb/114788755359395779</a>

Richard MacManus"Well, we don’t feel threatened." That's the Olim brothers — founders of dot-com online music retailer, CDnow — talking about Amazon. It's from a book they published in 1998 entitled "The CDnow Story: Rags to Riches on the Internet". At the start of '98, they were the leaders in online music retail. But in June 1998 [cue ominous music] Amazon branched out from books and added a Music tab to its fast growing e-commerce website... <a href="https://cybercultural.com/p/cdnow-amazon-1998/" rel="nofollow noopener" translate="no" target="_blank">https://cybercultural.com/p/cdnow-amazon-1998/</a> <a href="https://mastodon.social/tags/InternetHistory" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#InternetHistory</a> <a href="https://mastodon.social/tags/CDnow" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#CDnow</a> <a href="https://mastodon.social/tags/Amazon" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#Amazon</a>

Richard MacManusIt took me ages to find screenshots of BowieNet as it looked on launch in September 1998, but I finally found some beauties. Oh, and I explain how BowieNet not only became the default online community for David Bowie fans, it also anticipated the social networks that would emerge in the 2000s, like Facebook and Reddit. <a href="https://cybercultural.com/p/bowienet-launch-1998/" rel="nofollow noopener" translate="no" target="_blank">https://cybercultural.com/p/bowienet-launch-1998/</a> <a href="https://mastodon.social/tags/InternetHistory" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#InternetHistory</a> <a href="https://mastodon.social/tags/BowieForever" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#BowieForever</a>

Richard MacManusThis week's Cybercultural article looks back on 1998, the year of the portal: Excite, Netscape Netcenter, Yahoo, AOL, MSN and others all competing for eyeballs and trying to be sticky. But with so many portals, some inevitably failed. <a href="https://cybercultural.com/p/portals-1998/" rel="nofollow noopener" translate="no" target="_blank">https://cybercultural.com/p/portals-1998/</a> <a href="https://mastodon.social/tags/InternetHistory" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#InternetHistory</a>

Richard MacManusIn 1997, the first browser war began amid new internet trends like 'push' and DHTML. Meanwhile, instant messaging apps like ICQ and AIM became popular and GeoCities achieved 1 million users. <a href="https://cybercultural.com/p/internet-1997/" rel="nofollow noopener" translate="no" target="_blank">https://cybercultural.com/p/internet-1997/</a> <a href="https://mastodon.social/tags/InternetHistory" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#InternetHistory</a>

Stefan BohacekRemember those "best experienced with [browser name]" badges?"MTV's revamped World Wide Web site for MTV contains a heavy amount of original music content and a unique Web browser design. [...] Some of the site's best content, including a grossly appealing game with Beavis & Butt-head, is designed exclusively for Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser."<a href="https://cybercultural.com/p/browser-war-1990s/" rel="nofollow noopener" translate="no" target="_blank">https://cybercultural.com/p/browser-war-1990s/</a><a href="https://stefanbohacek.online/tags/internet" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#internet</a> <a href="https://stefanbohacek.online/tags/TheWeb" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#TheWeb</a> <a href="https://stefanbohacek.online/tags/InternetHistory" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#InternetHistory</a> <a href="https://stefanbohacek.online/tags/technology" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#technology</a> <a href="https://stefanbohacek.online/tags/cyberculture" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#cyberculture</a>

Richard MacManus"I want my MTV...as long as it's the Java version in IE4." MTV's website in 1997 was a hodgepodge of technologies: Java, JavaScript, frames and more. The quality of your user experience depended on which browser you used: Netscape or IE. <a href="https://cybercultural.com/p/browser-war-1990s/" rel="nofollow noopener" translate="no" target="_blank">https://cybercultural.com/p/browser-war-1990s/</a> <a href="https://mastodon.social/tags/InternetHistory" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#InternetHistory</a> <a href="https://mastodon.social/tags/BrowserWar" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#BrowserWar</a>

Richard MacManusNow this is a detail I hadn’t known about the launch of Netscape Navigator in December 1994. From ‘Speeding the Net’, a 1998 book about Netscape by Quittner and Slatalla. <a href="https://mastodon.social/tags/InternetHistory" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#InternetHistory</a>

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