To all the URL’s I’ve loved before,
Who traveled in and out my door
I’m glad they came along
I dedicate this song…
To all the URL’s I’ve loved before….
Yes, cheeky, strange, but in this season of love it’s worth talking about those relationships we’ve had in the marketing world that are long lost memories. These sites, some so popular for their time, are now a distant memory as something better has come along. A horrific way to view true love, but a sensible way to view the fascinations we have in the marketing world.
MySpace.com
Yes, we all had one, and it’s now one of those tragic stories of social media accounts. Millennials are too young to remember the site in its full glory, but for the GenX community it was Facebook before Facebook’s time. Yes, it’s still up and running, you can visit it here myspace.com, but it’s a hollow shell of what it was during its former internet dominance.
Google+
I kinda feel like talking about Google+ is like talking about someone who is still in the room. Google wants us to think it’s important, even tying some of the search algorithms to it, but this was a relationship that never really took off. We all feel compelled to use it for SEO, but other than that, it’s not a heathy relationship.
Ask Jeeves
Many of us remember the world before Google dominance, when you had an even choice between Yahoo, Ask Jeeves, webcrawler, lycos, etc. The world seemed flat with little influence shared in any direction. Oh, how things have changed.
Netzero
Yes, there was a time when you had to DIAL into the internet. And that came at a cost. If you wanted to get around that pesky 19.99 a month for AOL, you had to use something like NetZero. Which was basically free internet with banner ads. This was the best way to get online for free in 1996.
Vine
The ships-passing-in-the-night romance, gone as quickly as it came. There was so much hope for Vine, but as we’ll see in the years to come, technology is going to move faster and faster, and sites will come up and be changed, closed, moved and absorbed with increasing speed. Most vines were shorter than the time it takes to read this sentence.
Hold Fast to What Lasts
URLs come and go – the internet is bound to change.
But what never changes is the human need to connect, live in community, and share stories. When a site, technology, or medium exists for us to do that, we will find a way to use it to communicate what we love, why we love it, and its value to us. This season, let our hearts not be fully invested in these passing pieces of digital fiction, but in the people around us who share in our story.
