I visit LL Bean on those occasions when I just need really, really well-made clothing that’s actually meant to last outdoors. In fact, I just got two new flannel shirts for the winter, plus two camisoles. Only two, because LL Bean is sadly expensive, and even though my mom treated me, I still don’t like spending money.

So when I saw the 2 star Way Back Time Machine, I knew immediately what website I wanted to present.

SO: PRESENTING THE 1996 VERSION OF THE LL BEAN WEBSITE

Wow. Flashback to the early days of the internet. I mean, I started playing computer games in the early 2000s, and the start screens of ALL of them kind of looked like this. TBH, a lot of start screens still look like this. It’s very pretty, though, and shows you very clearly what kind of person their target demographic is. I like the link that (I guess?) shows you National Parks? Or state parks? Plus the outdoor sports tab. It’s very interested in getting you engaged in the outdoors. Ahhh, the early days of the internet and internet shopping.

Compare this to the LL Bean of today:

(Fun story, I used the website provided to find the website as it looks today. Then I realized I was an idiot; I had the website up as a separate tab from when I’d been shopping for flannels.) There’s still the effort to get you engaged in the outdoors as well as spending money– look at the “Outdoor Schools” tab on the far right. Lessons are surprisingly cheap (still, 25$ is a lot of money for a broke college kid like myself, plus they’re not exactly accessible to someone without a car). However, the Parks tab has disappeared, and there’s definitely more emphasis on shopping. Also, with the advent of clearer photography, people now expect defined photos on websites, not slightly blurry watercolors. That gorgeous scenery in the background says that LL Bean isn’t just selling you clothing; they’re selling you experiences in nature.

The website they gave you to look up the archived website was fantastically easy to use; you just put the url from the current site into the search bar and it brings it right up. It also says at the top what the earliest date is that they have an image for. I clicked on that and the 1996 site came right up. Then I just took a screenshot and cropped it in paint. Same for the modern site. The effort from production is worth one star; it’s the thinking about what the sites say that gives it the next star.

For my last assignment, I chose to use the way back time machine to look at the Target website in the past and today. It is listed as 2 stars, but I would say it’s worth 1 star because all you have to do is type the address in. The earliest I could find a good screenshot was in 1999:

It looks a lot more modern than I was expecting!

Here is the website in 2016:

Biggest difference was that basically every website today has their categories under a drop down menu. It definitely makes websites more aesthetically pleasing!

This assignment was interesting because I was 4 years old in 1999, so I was not using the internet. I was surprised at how the website looked in 1999, I was expecting it to be a lot less modern looking than it is!

I was first drawn to this assignment simply by reading the title.  I had heard of the Wayback machine, but had never used it myself.  This seemed like the perfect opportunity to do so!

The first thing to do was select a website to examine.  Originally I considered Wikipedia, but then the idea of examining the school website struck me.  This seemed like a great way to make the assignment especially engaging to other UMW students by using a website that is relevant to them.

In terms of assignment completion, please note that I opted to use the snipping tool to grab my screenshots, as I haven’t yet totally figured out how to use my screenshot option (I’ve used it in the past but forgotten how to use it, as the process isn’t very intuitive on this laptop).

My earliest screenshot was from 2004, and I immediately note the immense amount of white space…

In continuing my search, I kept finding that the website links were covering the background with the school title.  At first I assumed this must be a mistake in the loading of the Wayback Machine.  But this mistake was consistent until late 2010…  Also note Professor Giancarlo!

Over time, the link coverage was corrected, and much more color was added, in addition to more dynamic features, such as shifting images (This made it a bit harder to grab screenshots.  At one point I accidentally grabbed one mid-fade!).

Ultimately I think I prefer the modern design to the previous options (though that may simply be because the current site is most familiar to me).  I think its also interesting to note the changing color patterns over time.  Now, excess white space is generally discouraged on most website (a problem of the 2004 version of the site, which was later corrected).  Some color pairings are now considered a bit off (the 2008 grey and orangeish-yellow seems an odd combination to me, and apparently the UMW web designers agreed and thus adjusted in latter versions).  And now more dynamic sites are popular (as seen in the image-shifting 2013 and 2016 versions).  In addition, one can see the new dashboard of the 2016 version, which includes icons as opposed to simple links (again emphasizing the importance of visual richness).  Ultimately I think these changes are consistent with the advice we currently receive regarding keeping websites engaging and user-friendly.

?????

For my first assignment from the Assignment Bank for DS106, I’ve decided to do the Wayback Machine Assignment. I’m supposed to use the Wayback Machine to look at versions of a website in the past, and compare it with later versions. Instead, I’ll be looking at a website that doesn’t have versions to compare.

Space Jam was released in November of 1996. Warner Bros. had a website created to promote the film, a bold move at the time. In 1996, there were 36 million internet-users. In 2016, there are 3.6 billion (a 100-fold increase in 20 years). For this relatively small audience, the glorious Space Jam site was created.

January 24??, 1997 is the earliest date the Wayback Machine has an archived version of the main page of site for. There’s also an archive of the intro page from December 27??, 1996, but the main page is more important:

The Space Jam website has been moved to a different address on Warner Bros.’ main website, but it still exists:

20 years later, and the only differences are:

1. The star that takes you to the site credits is gone.
2. There’s a link to legal information.

That’s it. The Space Jam website is interesting not because it has changed so drastically over the years, but because it hasn’t really changed at all. It’s become something of a digital museum, a relic of an internet that no longer exists. Exploring around the site can show you just how much digital media has changed over the years.

It has it all: horrendously 90s choice of red Times New Roman on a starry background, an unusual and broken navigation bar at the top, and super fun orange letters on a purple background. Every page of the site looks similar to this. All except the page that links to the Warner Bros. Studio Store:

This page is interesting because it still has the Space Jam navigation bar on the left, while the remainder of the screen is filled by the WB Shop site. The stark contrast between the 1996 and 2016 web design makes this page especially interesting. While the Space Jam site as a whole serves as a preserved relic of the internet’s ancient past, this particular page gives a side-by-side comparison, showing how different things have become in the 20 years since the site went up.

Space Jam‘s website is interesting not because of how much it has changed in the past two decades, but in how little it has changed. The internet has increased in size a hundredfold, and websites have gotten exponentially smoother, cleaner, and larger, but the Space Jam site has stayed the same. It hasn’t been taken down, found only in some third-party’s archive; it isn’t lost forever; it hasn’t been updated. It’s one of the internet’s few constant values.