But to what extent has this history been preserved? Does the Million Dollar Homepage represent a robust digital artifact 12 years after its creation, or has it fallen prey to the ephemerality common to internet content? Have the forces of link rot and administrative neglect rendered it a shell of its former self?
I remember this quite well – and I can’t believe it’s already been 12 years. As the article notes, it serves as a great preserved microcosm of that era’s web – good and bad.
Reddit dit something similar but turned it into a game of claim with loads of subreddits claiming real estate.
This is the result of the combined creativity of Reddit:
http://i.imgur.com/xeUTbZO.png
A few days ago I ate a bag of chips. I carelessly tossed the empty bag in the bin without a second thought. Such a valuable historical piece should’ve been preserved in a hermetically sealed display case for future generations to see.
The very next day I drank a can of soft drink, and did something truly horrific – I crushed the can. A priceless artefact ruined.
This is why we need to colonise Mars – so we have enough room to archive all the extremely important historical items (my chip packet, my drink can, your Father’s toe nail clippings, the web site/s mentioned in this article, etc) forever (or at least until Mars is full and we have to start turning Jupiter into a museum of treasure too).
– Brendan
Yeah, I see that a bit with architecture too.
I mean, sure, I can believe it when someone tells me that a particular structure is a classic example of 70s design. But that’s probably why it’s also been voted ugliest building in the city every year since it was new.
Future generations will not thank us if we choose to preserve it for their benefit…
Sadly, I see your point and agree. While this thing is kind-of interesting for first 2 minutes as a trivia from the past, it has zero value as historical/cultural/other artifact.
This article serves as a perfect example of the level of competency of this particular OSAlert “author”.
Of all the years I’ve been online since 1986, the years 2003-2006 were probably when I was online, at least WWW since it existed, the least.
I was building and hosting and living online by 1998, but after 4-5 years I was disheartened and annoyed.
Maybe it was also because I had an early smartphone that could get online with text sites only, and flash-heavy web sites annoyed and excluded me.
I remember around 2005 things were so commercial and cheap online. It was the myspace era. Sorta like now, there was a lot of junk online. We were still fighting for our privacy and fighting against cookies.
Of course, OSAlert has been my goto since BeOS was a thing!
Reply to myself —
The War Years. Had to think about it. The illegal war against Afghanistan and Iraq was going very badly and the US administration (Bush/Cheney) were lying about it daily.
I was online. I was getting news and checking myspace for hot chicks (;-))
I don’t know, maybe just my personal story, but I remember being pretty disappointed in “the web” around 2005 timeframe. But I did get multiple worldwide news sources for free. That was invaluable.
Never heard of the million dollar homepage before today.
But! I found Waldo. There he is.