Dear The Internet,
Let’s say, for the sake of argument, that I was going to open a business offering nostalgia web hosting. It would be where people who really wish their sites looked like a 1998 Geocities page would come.
The question: what features should this company offer? A free Under Construction .gif with every new account? Frames so you can have a scrollable side menu?
11 Comments
Make sure it follows the HTML 1.0 standard.
All pages automatically mirrored via gopher.
The ability to turn off on any desired line of text.
The ability to turn off BLINK on any desired line of text.
(I didn’t expect your web site to *not escape* that tag…)
To fully fit the bill, you would mandate, just like dialup ISPs of the time, that all customer sites fit within a three megabyte account limit. They’d then figure out insane ways to make that 3MB stretch. Remember “The Farm”? Yeah, a meg and a half, tops.
I require a selection of MIDI files that will start playing when one of my pages loads.
Free under construction sign (black and yellow).
Frames support.
Suggest ‘web rings’ the site can join.
A hit counter I can put into my cgi-bin, preferably generating graphics that look like a vintage flip-style nightstand alarm clock.
Embeddable “Search the World Wide Web (WWW)!!!” boxes, one for each hot web search engine: AltaVista, Lycos, HotBot, you know, the big guys.
If you have time, an animated GIF of a mailbox opening and a letter flying into it that I can use as my mailto: link graphic.
These are all frighteningly on the mark.
Hm, there’s also the .gif of Bill Gates morphing into a devil.
Those goo-splatter NEW and UPDATED icons.
Links in your choice of blue, red, or purple.
Tiled background graphics at least 600 pixels square.
A “Last updated” dating back to the Clinton Administration.