Blasts from the Past – Like a Tech Yearbook, Complete with Prom Pics

I found a link on Twitter to the Google archives from 2001.

“In honor of our 10th birthday, we’ve brought back our oldest available index. Take a look back at Google in January 2001.” – Google

While checking out the life and times of my 2001 self, I remembered another fun Web research tool, Web Archive, that lets you search for Web pages back to 1996.

I was surprised to see that many of the links on the pages were still clickable. I’m sure others with the understanding of the architecture may not be as impressed. But, the fact that I was almost able to build a 1999 Escort on the Ford site was pretty cool.

I’ve included a few interesting searches below, but take a look for yourself. One of the more interesting finds is the search I did for Technorati. Looking at the Technorati homepage from 2002 indicates that the site on that day was tracking 15,729 blogs. It’s little things like that stat which offer insight to to the growth of the Internet.

Take a look, and let me know if you find anything interesting.

Technorati: Dec 09, 2002

MIT Blogdex Top 10

Gizmodo: Aug 24, 2002

Engadget: Mar 05, 2004

GigaOm: Dec 02, 2001

CNN.com: Jun 20, 2000

Scobleizer: Dec 14, 2005

Chevrolet.com: Mar 03, 2000

Ford.com:Mar 03, 2000

Pepsi.com: Dec 19, 1996

AOL.com: Dec 20, 1996