The homepages
Click a page to read its story.
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adobe.com in June 2004: “Adobe extends Intelligent Document Platform” over a glass tower and a dense product grid.
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AltaVista in June 2004: a compact centered blue search form with a red FIND button and “© 2004 Overture Services, Inc.” in the footer.
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AOL in June 2004: a sales page for dial-up and AOL for Broadband.
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AirPort Express; the tab is now “iPod+iTunes”.
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bbc.co.uk in June 2004: the light-blue “home” logo, “More than 2 million amazing BBC pages” and Where I Live set to London.
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Best Buy in June 2004: a blue and white page, a bigger yellow tag, “Thousands of Possibilities”, “GET YOURS” and “Why pay shipping?”
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World of Warcraft launch news on Blizzard's homepage: an estimated 250,000 copies sold through in one day; the big picture is blank.
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GameFAQs homepage: a centered page places a blue gradient masthead above recent updates, compact rankings and GameSpot news.
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GameSpot's 2004 homepage: Gold navigation, a Rome: Total War banner and EverQuest coverage fill the dark portal.
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A separate Search the Web control sits below the database search in the left sidebar.
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LEGO.com in June 2004: the knights scene above Shop and Products tabs and three Quick Links lists.
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Lycos in April 2004: “Introducing the new Lycos. Building relationships ... every kind, every day.” This capture renders largely unstyled.
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Spyware help, Harry Potter, and the “Longhorn” user experience.
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MSN.com in June 2004: white columns on a dark blue background, the butterfly in a blue header and “US Open: Who Can (& Can’t) Win”.
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Nintendo’s homepage in June 2004: white columns with news and game lists; the Flash feature shows “Couldn’t load plugin.” in this replay.
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Nokia's homepage in June 2004: “Totally Board”, the Nokia 3220, Xpress-on Fun Shells and a link to N-Gage.
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NYTimes.com in March 2004: “Stewart Found Guilty on All Counts” and a new Campaign 2004 section.
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spacejam.com redirects to Warner Home Video's purple “OWN IT NOW ON DVD!” page for the 2-disc special edition.
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Guardian Unlimited in June 2004: a colorful Euro 2004 block beside the news columns.
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Walmart.com in June 2004: “It’s Almost Dad’s Day”, DVD rentals from $15.54 and music downloads at 88¢ a song.
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Yahoo in June 2004: Yahoo! Search with popular terms (Ronald Reagan, Lindsay Lohan) and U.S. Open coverage.
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EA's four-brand storefront with Madden NFL 2005, The Sims 2 on pre-order and a row of game boxes.
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eBay in June 2004: a blue “Welcome to eBay” banner, a numbered “1 Find” box and “You must register to bid or buy”.
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Nick.com in November 2004: a gray frame of white boxes, most of them games, starting with “Attack of the Twonkies!”
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“Amazon.com: Welcome”, Beta stores, Presidential Candidates.
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Ask Jeeves in June 2004: “Please enter your search below”, and the button beside the box says Search, not Ask.
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Cartoon Network’s June 2004 homepage: a Bayou Scooby-Doo game in the WELCOME! card and Teen Titans “NEW EPISODES! NEW SITE!”.
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Craigslist’s San Francisco page in February 2004: “post to classifieds” at the top of the left column, no pictures.
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ESPN.com in June 2004: “Pistons Roll To NBA Title”, the Flash notice in the header and a dark “MyESPN is here!” panel.
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Google in January 2004: five tabs and “©2003 Google - Searching 3,307,998,701 web pages” in the footer.
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ICQ.com in June 2004: a Download Now! button for ICQ 4 Lite edition and a couple who “met on ICQ & just got married in May” (photo blurred).
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IGN.com in June 2004, titled “Games, Cheats, Movies and More”: a grey three-column portal with lead stories and a news rail.
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ikea-usa.com in June 2004: five photo tiles, the first introducing Anna from the IKEA Help Center.
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Newgrounds in June 2004: grey framed panels, a poll to wean the site off pop-up ads and Tom Fulp’s “Copycat Rant”.
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Nike's gray gateway shows two runners on a beach in its central photo.
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PlayStation’s global splash page in June 2004: China joins the region list, with the PlayStation.com wordmark moved and a Global Home button at its right.
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Winamp homepage in 2004: a grey-and-orange redesign places Winamp 5 and its llama download graphic above music, skins and community columns.
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Blogger replaces the news page with a cream panel and three steps to create a blog.
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Napster’s light-gray homepage keeps the free-install button and portable-player promotion from late 2003.
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Free trial, $22 a month.
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PayPal in October 2004: a yellow-framed login box, a photo banner around “The Way to Pay” and columns for Buyers, eBay Sellers and Merchants.
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AMERICA HAS SPOKEN spans the page above a map and an electoral-vote box.
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deviantART’s homepage in June 2004: a thin, spaced wordmark and a sidebar count of 6,113,280 deviations
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RuneScape after the RS2 launch: 12,844 people playing, Latest News and Updates, Play Game and Create Account tiles.
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Miniclip’s 2004 homepage: “Free Games and Shows” and a “PSST!” notice asking for Flash Player version 5 or later.
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Xbox.com in November 2004: the silver frame with Halo 2 in the game list and a plug-in panel that no longer loads.
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AddictingGames.com in June 2004: the white catalogue with its category columns and an advertising banner above the game list.
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Friendster keeps the face diagram, dating introduction and separate signup and login buttons.
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Steam’s homepage in June 2004: “BECOME PART OF THE STEAM COMMUNITY”, a Counter-Strike: Condition Zero banner and the Half-Life 2 Hardware Survey.
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Last.fm explains recommendations beside a yellow signup panel; its header logo and other images are missing, and private network names are blurred.
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Skype homepage with a red cloud logo, “Free Internet Telephony that Just Works” and 13,941,770 downloads.
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The same Tesla Motors contact text, now with a webmaster address; the header image does not render.
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First captureDigg in December 2004: a text list of links, each with a bracketed score like “[+ 19 digs]” and a submitter byline.
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First captureThefacebook in February 2004: “[ Welcome to Thefacebook ]”, an online directory “at Harvard University”, signed “a Mark Zuckerberg production”.
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First captureOrkut's 2004 landing page: a face collage, a trusted-friends introduction and a username/password box.
One capture per site from the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine, checked by eye. What a capture shows is what the archive kept that day: some images and scripts are missing.
Every year
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