Evolution of Websites: How 40 Popular Websites have Changed Over the Years

Ten years ago, I was just a little 5-year-old toddler whose eyes were usually glued to the television screen, watching cartoons. At that time, I didn’t how to use the computer yet unlike my fellow friend – Zhou Tong who knew how to operate the bulky machine by the age of 4. Impressive! As my childhood days started to decrease each day, I was exposed to the world wide web, an ever-expanding world of websites.

Now in the year 2009, I’ve no idea how those popular websites (Google, Apple and Microsoft) looked like in the late 90’s. Fortunately, all thanks to the waybackmachine internet archive, I’m still able to to see some of the Web 1.0 and Web 2.0 pioneers looked in their earliest incarnations and how they have changed over the years. Check them out below…

Google in 1998

Google in 2009

Yahoo in 1995

Yahoo in 2009

Facebook in 2004

Facebook in 2009

YouTube in 2005

YouTube in 2009

Wikipedia in 2001

Wikipedia in 2009

Blogger in 1999

Blogger in 2009

MSN in 1995

MSN in 2009

Baidu in 2000

Baidu in 2009

MySpace in 2003

MySpace in 2009

Twitter in 2006

Twitter in 2009

Microsoft in 1998

Microsoft in 2009

Apple in 1996

Apple in 2009

Amazon in 1995

Amazon in 2009

Flickr in 2004

Flickr in 2009

AOL in 1996

AOL in 2009

Hi5 in 2003

Hi5 in 2009

Photobucket in 2003

Photobucket in 2009

BBC in 1996

BBC in 2009

Ask.com in 1996

Ask.com in 2009

CNN in 1995

CNN in 2009

Adobe in 1996

Adobe in 2009

Deviant Art in 2000

Deviant Art in 2009

ESPN in 2004

ESPN in 2009

Friendster in 2002

Friendster in 2009

LiveJournal in 1999

LiveJournal in 2009

Mozilla in 1998

Mozilla in 2009

Tagged in 2004

Tagged in 2009

The Pirate Bay in 2003

The Pirate Bay in 2009

New York Times in 1996

New York Times in 2009

Digg in 2004

Digg in 2009

Dell in 1996

Dell in 2009

HP in 1996

HP in 2009

Fox News in 1996

Fox News in 2009

Hulu in 2007

Hulu in 2009

IGN in 1998

IGN in 2009

Skype in 2003

Skype in 2009

AT&T in 1997

AT&T in 2009

Sony in 1996

Sony in 2009

Symantec in 1996

Symantec in 2009

Hotmail in 1996

Hotmail in 2009