The most popular websites 20 years ago
The early aughts ushered in a new era of digital consumption for those who could connect easily to the World Wide Web. With it came hundreds of websites that changed the world, from social media platforms to messaging services. Here are 20 of the most popular.
MySpace
It’s hard to believe there was ever a time before Facebook, but there was, and that era was ushered in by MySpace, the massively popular platform that allowed users to connect online and customize their own profiles. Popularity of the site began to wane by 2008. Since 2014, the owners of the company have tried to rebrand it to reignite a love for its services (sadly, to no avail).
There may be no site that has transformed the way we do things as a society more than Google, which launched in 1998 as a way for people to find the information they needed at any given time. The site has become so ingrained in our psyche that Google has even become a verb.
Pandora
The days of the CD and mixtape went the way of the dodo thanks to this incredibly popular streaming service, which launched in 2005. Though it wasn’t able to adjust to competitors like Spotify and Apple Music, it was the first-of-its-kind music platform where artists found new fans and audiences.
eBay
Looking for a place to buy some obscure item online? Back in the early aughts, everyone turned to eBay, the shopping site which launched in 1995. It still stands as the place to buy and sell lightly used nostalgic items like Pez candy dispensers and Beanie Babies.
The Onion
This website remains the best authority on absurd takes of our world and the media that covers its tales, having transitioned online from a paper publication in 1996. Their headlines are legendary, with things like “Kitten Thinks Of Nothing But Murder All Day” to “World Death Rate Holding Steady At 100 Percent.” The stories add a little levity to what can sometimes feel like a negative news cycle.
The Pirate Bay
Downloading content like movies became a whole lot easier in 2003 thanks to The Pirate Bay, something that angered the Motion Picture Association of America. Many agree the torrents that were available linked to illegal-to-download content, but that didn’t stop it from being incredibly popular. Unbelievably, the site still exists today.
America Online/AOL
Though this website has corporate origins dating back to 1983, it reached peak popularity because of its messaging service and various acquisitions and mergers in the late ‘90s and early aughts. It was the place to search, the place to get your news, the place to send content to your friends and family; it lives on with the same purpose today, though is less popular.
Ask Jeeves
If you had a question from 1996 until 2006, the place to ask it would have been Ask Jeeves (now Ask.com). It was the original Siri and Alexa and shared info on everything from the day’s weather to how the Roman Empire fell.
Rotten Tomatoes
Before this website launched in 1998, movie reviews were exclusively the domain of bona fide film critics and were shared on entertainment television shows every night. The Tomatometer put the power of ratings into the hands of the public, which changed how films were scored. The best flicks were certified fresh.
MapQuest
This was the very first mainstream mapping website, giving people the power to figure out how to get from point A to B without needing extensive map-reading skills (though, let’s be real, they still helped).
Blogger
Before there was Instagram there was Blogger, the ultimate place to build a website where you could share information about all of the random things you did every day. It kick-started the “blogging” industry and the influencer economy. Google purchased the site in 2003.
Weather.com
When Weather.com came to be, it made the need for tuning into the evening weather forecast on your local news obsolete. It launched in 1995 and remains one of the most popular websites in the world thanks to its dynamic and jaw-dropping weather videos.
Expedia
Booking a trip on-the-fly became cost-efficient and incredibly easy thanks to this website, which launched in 1996. The site’s name is an amalgamation of “exploration” and “speed” and became one of the first online travel agencies.
MeetUp
The initial concept of getting people with common interests to meet offline is a good one, and this site, which launched in 2002, was the first that attempted to bring the idea to real life. In 2019, the site and app had over 44 million users worldwide.
Blingee
Part GIF, part graphic, this site still gives people the opportunity to create personalized images they can share with their friends. It was launched in 2006 as one of a number of teen-focused websites and was partially popularized by MySpace.
Scary Maze Game
This maze game was so popular after it launched in 2003, it became an internet sensation; people even recorded themselves playing the game, sharing it to YouTube. The flash-based computer game ended one of its levels with the possessed girl from The Exorcist popping up on the screen.
Whether we like it or not, this site, founded in 2005, became the go-to place for crowdsourcing information. Today, nearly 430 million people check out the site every month to read up on people’s opinions and find terrible memes.
MSN Messenger
Originally launched in 1999, MSN’s Messenger service was one of the first instant messenger programs that allowed people to send each other emoticons and IMs. Some stats suggest that over 60 per cent of web users worldwide once used the interface. It shut down for good in 2014.
Wikipedia
With the help of a volunteer group of editors and citation requirements, this site, launched in 2001, transformed everything we know about digging into a topic. It now stands, for better or for worse, as the world’s record of reality for millions of topics in hundreds of languages.
