If you were around to surf the web in the early days of the Internet, you know that what you did and where you went was very different from your online activities today. Nearly 20 years ago, Facebook didn't exist, online shopping had yet to come into its own and if you said the word Google to someone, they probably would have thought you were speaking baby talk.
Cut to 2014, and you can interact with celebrities on Twitter, instantly snap and share photos with people all over the world through Instagram and stay in touch with loved ones — and actually see their faces — on Skype. The Internet of today looks barely anything like the Internet of yesteryear.
How different did it look exactly? The Washington Post recently analyzed the 20 most popular websites from 1996 to 2013 using comScore data from December of each year. Something to keep in mind here is that this comScore data shows the top online properties, like Google, and not individual websites, like YouTube. The results are pretty indicative of the changing Internet landscape and our changing culture, too.
So let's get started, shall we? You can head over to The Washington Post to see some nifty charts, but here's some of what you'll see. Beginning in 1996, the majority of the top websites were unsurprisingly major players in the original dot-com boom, such as NetScape, WebCrawler and Excite, all of which still have active websites that look like they haven't been updated since 1996. Another notable finding is that a few college websites were in the top 20, which as The Washington Post points out, is due to the academic institutions' early investment in the Internet.
AOL topped the list from 1996 to 2002, after which it was absorbed by Time Warner and was still near the top of the list. However, since the mid-2000s and after it ended its merger with Time Warner, it has been slipping. Yahoo was always close by, and if you think this tech company is antiquated, think again. Yahoo has remained in the top four since 1996. Of course, Google quickly crept up the list starting in 2001, eventually earning the top spot in 2008. The company has stayed at No.1 or No. 2 ever since. We've also been able to count on Microsoft/MSN to remain near the top of the list since 1996.
E-commerce starts to take off in the late 1990s with appearances by eBay and Amazon in the top 20 and then in the top 10 by the early 2000s. Since then, Amazon has held strong in that position, but eBay has dropped down the list in recent years. Amazon's expansion into areas outside of e-commerce, such as e-books and music and video streaming, have definitely helped its positions remain relatively steady through the years.
In the late 2000s, the Internet started to look a lot different with Facebook emerging as a force to be reckoned with, ushering in an era of social everything. That's no surprise, but one of the stranger results in this data is that Glam Media, which is now known as Mode Media, has remained near the top 10 since 2008. I don't know about you, but before looking at this data, I had never heard of Glam Media, but after some Googling, it looks like the media company owns a bunch of fashion and lifestyle websites.
That's the thing about the Internet. New players are always entering hoping to change the game.
