Memories of the first time are always fresh, often fond, evoke nostalgia.
Today, on Twitter, I took a short stroll down memory lane - and was joined by many people on the journey - to remember my FIRST WEBSITE.
Once famous and popular names cropped up in tweets - Geocities, Angel Fire, MSN Groups, Island Internet and more.
And as we viewed our first efforts through the prism of time, we shared a collective frisson of excitement, exploration and even yearning
Then, something interesting evolved - we got to wondering how it would be if we all shared our ‘first time’ experiences in ‘getting online’ with our earliest web presence.
Never mind that these sites are ones you’d rather not have anyone see today, they no doubt gave you a sense of pride and achievement when they first went up on the Web.
- Where did you host them?
- How did they look? (See if you can find it now, and share a link or at least a screen shot of how it looked)
- How did you feel about creating them?
Care to share your memories of those heady days in a short blog post? I’ll go first…
Where did I host it?
My first site (in 1996) was hosted on GEOCITIES, in the HotSprings neighborhood.
How did it look?
It looked like this (*gasp*)
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How did I feel about creating it?
Believe it or not, that multi-colored banner that graces the top of the page was something I thought “COOL” (I shudder now to think about it!) 
The content, however, is still something I consider high quality. And yes, the page is still up!
Now… YOU.
Here’s what to do.
1. Post to your blog with your “first time” story.
2. Link to this post somewhere in yours.
3. Tag someone you know, invite them to write about their “first time”.
4. If you’re on Twitter, tweet a link to your blog post - and use #myfirstweb to make it easy to find and list all tweets on the topic
After a week or two, we’ll compile a list of all these posts - and it will be fun to see how we all evolved in our journey through the Web!
Looking forward to seeing your “first time” story soon.
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8 Comments Received
December 14th, 2008 @3:03 pm
Dr. Mani @DrMani & all!
Wow! Your beginnings are quite a story. Your idea’s genius!
My 1st site was at AOL Hometown now shut down in October.
My start on the web by this “consummate computer cavewoman” AKA “NET Novice” newbie I am shows I’ve much to learn.
Converting my 27 years in business & personal training with my scientific and medical breakthroughs, and decades of researcha require this huge task in converting this Internet.
Learning the Net’s only begun as is, below, blatantly obvious:
http://people.tribe.net/59ad5f34-241b-49dd-a638-63922ebcbe91
Everyone’s got a story: your “everyone’s beginnings” idea’s most powerful trend for viral social media marketing! Kudos!
I’m IN! Dr. Mani, you’re HOT! It’s time for this to spread!
Best,
@ZnaTrainer
http://twitter.com/ZnaTrainer
December 14th, 2008 @5:05 pm
I just remember all the blue text links and all the brackets around links at the top of the page. And I also remember it set the stage for being diligent about providing thorough content. Some of those early pages are still ranking high even though I don’t actively update them any longer.
Cheryl C. Cigan
http://www.known.com
December 16th, 2008 @4:16 am
Dr Mani,
I wish I was smart enough to have retained both my original website and the original domain name! But I didn’t!
My first website was up in 2000. I paid a couple of guys who were “website developers” about $5,000 to have it built!
It had a beautiful flash intro (yeah, I know, what was I thinking!?) and was so technologically advanced it was pretty much an online version of Ginsu knife. It only had one problem. In the year or so that I had it active it failed to attract one lead, client, or sale! So in short - it sucked!
It also had a great domain name: incitedg.com - short for my then corporate name “Incite Development Group”!
So while I can’t point you to my first website, I think there are a few useful lessons here for everyone…
1) When you are starting out you are bound to make some mistakes. Some will be a bit expensive (like my first website) but most won’t be deadly! And the faster you get them out of your system the faster you will learn what actually works. So in short - fail forward!
2) While I’m certainly NOT a mainstream guru, I have a loyal following who regularly turn to me for marketing advice. Many of them who are my more recent followers think I’ve enjoyed an overnight success. But the truth is I have devoted long years, hundreds of thousands of dollars, and many sleepless nights to learn and master my craft. And so did most people who are considered today’s gurus! So in short - if you want success be prepared to pay the dues
3) Keep a journal or a “scrap book” of sorts that documents your journey. I wish I did. You might find it helpful one day in case Dr. Mani comes up with another question “do you remember your first time?!” Actually, you will more likely use it to build your credibility at some point, or as training material to share with your students. In short - document and track everything - you will multiply your learning exponentially!
I hope this gives you some food for thought…
Smiles,
Adam Urbanski
December 17th, 2008 @12:01 pm
Great to stroll down memory lane with you.
Since both you AND Case Stevens tagged me in Twitter for this, I’ll have to come clean with my first site (circa 1998) It’s ugly, but it actually did generate leads for me.
I’ll post to my blog when I’ve pulled it all together.
@AdamUrbanski: http://web.archive.org/web/20020523140154/http://www.incitedg.com/ There *is* an archive version of your site. I don’t see the flash intro though.
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