I firmly believe my generation has helped establish the landscape and consumption of the internet today. When I was in primary school computers were starting to become an affordable purchase for the average family, and by the time I was in high school, Computer Studies was a subject that was being taught, teaching us the basic principles of programming. I can admit maths wasn’t my strong suit but I could write algorithms for days.

The internet was first available to the public in 1991, however, it was developed many years prior by the army to allow data to be communicated between one or more computers in a network. (Googling this information brings back memories of Computer Studies.) The internet has evolved so much more since then, and what was once commonly used or popular on the internet 10-15 years ago, may not be the case today, here are a few examples:

ICQ

ICQ was a play on the line “I seek you.” Created in 1996 it was one of the first popular instant messaging services where you would create an account and link up with others who also had an account so you could message/chat to each other. Initially, there was no sharing of photos or images, no emoji’s or videos, just straight up text messaging. ICQ slowly lost its reign on the instant messaging market when it started to become less intuitive for a beginner, and competitors like AIM (AOL Instant Messenger) and MSN (Microsoft Network) offered a better and easier alternative. Ironically those two  services aren’t as cool today either.

I lived on ICQ in my teens. It allowed me to chat to my friends and make new friends online. ICQ is still around today and rumour is if you had an account previously and still remember your login, (email address) and password you can still access your account.

AltaVista

AltaVista was the most popular search engine used at one point but lost its ground due to poor leadership vision. Then Google took off and other search engines could not really compete to Google’s techniques to web searching. It was purchased by Yahoo! In 2003, but by 2013 unable to monopolies the search engine market any longer, the search engine was shut down.

GeoCities

The stuff you find online today didn’t exist 10 years ago. There was no YouTube, Facebook, Sydney Morning Herald or ASOS. If you were like me and got bored of chatting on ICQ, you built personal homepages. GeoCities which started in 1994 allowed users to create websites for free using either one of their pre-made templates or code your own, similar to Blogger, WordPress and all those site building services today. GeoCities was eventually purchased by Yahoo! in 1999 and a few poor business decisions such as offering a for-fee premium hosting service, saw users go elsewhere. Eventually, in 2009, an announcement was made to close it’s US branches.  

Friendster

Before there was Facebook there was MySpace, and before there was MySpace there was Friendster. Launched in 2002 was one of the original social networking sites on the internet. It allowed users to connect with friends, share media and online content with one another. Researching the reasons why Friendster died it was mostly due to the more innovate functionality Facebook provided when it started two years later. I do recall being a heavy user of Friendster but once I understood how Facebook worked it engaged me more than Friendster did. Friendster still exists today changing its target market to be the social gaming platform in 2011. 

Napster

Napster was a free peer-to-peer file sharing internet service, where people could share mp3 format files with one another. It eventually ceased operations as the company ran into legal issues over copyright infringements. Personally, I didn’t use Napster a whole lot, as I didn’t have a Sony mp3 player, ha! After losing its legal battle, the company shut down and went bankrupt. It was passed around to a few owners until finally it was picked up by Rhapsody a subscriptions based music provider in 2011. So Napster is also still around but as Rhapsody’s brand in certain parts of the globe. 

Ironically the main reasons why most of these businesses no longer dominate their service market is due to their inability to evolve with the ever-changing environment of their market. Today we can’t ignore the impact the internet has in growing and also stagnating a business. An online presence should always be a consideration for any business. If not, your business may slowly become uncool too. If you’ve been wondering how you can leverage the internet to grow your business, drop us a line at hello@followmemedia.com.au

I just remembered a few more – flash websites, not using your name as an email address. Can you come up with any other businesses or online tools that use to be popular on the internet a few years ago but no longer today?