![\"drag](\"https:\/\/www.hostgator.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/470x60-Blog-DragNDrop.png\")
<\/a><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\nWhat Happened to Myspace?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n![\"myspace](\"https:\/\/lh5.googleusercontent.com\/lODaAZR8SjCTJjznsLd9iK-cyYp9e0Od6kUW0Y7mM9W7XFmgWXQbXtXBjR9KcP6HaY1vYQKFaMcrikk7dZZu050g_5g8jw9oxUBMK7IW5VvqzRAG5-NvtunwMYcpy6s2lMzcgHGEmkX_5_6bmg\")
Myspace then<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\nWhat didn\u2019t<\/em> happen to Myspace? Myspace, founded in 2003, went from zero to world\u2019s biggest social network in four years. In that brief time, it won millions of users and launched countless careers (and derailed at least one) before slowly sliding into irrelevance.<\/p>\n\n\n\nTeenagers and young adults flocked to Myspace to connect with each other and find new artists. Because users could upload songs and embed YouTube videos, Myspace became a hub for budding comedians, filmmakers and musicians who wanted to reach a big audience. Lily Allen, Arctic Monkeys, Ke$ha, Skrillex and Katy Perry<\/a> all used Myspace to share their early work. <\/p>\n\n\n\nIn 2004 Myspace had the chance to buy Facebook but passed, because Mark Zuckerberg wanted a seemingly outrageous $75 million. The next year, Myspace spawned an epic bidding war between Fox News parent company News Corp. and media titan Viacom. News Corp. won, Viacom\u2019s CEO got fired for failing to land the deal, and Rupert Murdoch got to hang out with Myspace\u2019s creators. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
By the mid-to-late 2000s, the social network had more than 100 million users worldwide. Myspace\u2019s time at the top was brief, though. Its site, according to a former VP, was a 'spaghetti-ball mess'\u009d that was hard to manage and maintain, as the Guardian reported in 2015. It was also increasingly unappealing to users, compared to the sleek design of Facebook. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Once Facebook started gaining traction, Myspace started to fade. Sold numerous times after it peaked, Myspace was briefly owned by Justin Timberlake and a group of co-investors who were sadly unable to bring MyspaceBack.<\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"Myspace\"\/](\"https:\/\/lh6.googleusercontent.com\/XMm_DfwdT5Pf1TvLDAyGY4woIQQjbNFI4Uim8G8Ti8Vg59XS6VLOfasbW2bCSCm_ZqjBv1jlglmL2NbS15Vi0TGj6eSQRd72ehSJ_Cftelc1qsH8XYs6rCJequSvHwmewQCrjY0c3h3mcxWMow\")
Myspace now<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\nBut don\u2019t let Myspace\u2019s sad tale of lost fame and fortune fool you. The site still gets about 8 million visitors per month. And it\u2019s still focused on music and videos–although it did lose 12 years\u2019 worth of content during a botched server migration revealed earlier this year. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The lessons of Myspace: Buy Facebook at $75 million, streamline your site and back up your data before you migrate to a new server or host<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\nWhat Happened to Netscape?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n![\"netscape](\"https:\/\/lh4.googleusercontent.com\/Kut7wTxB_3D1vEOi1TJjIGlpMaVwvrx23MHzc1Dmw9vKON4G2slPEDdof_vWXVePZ9KsCmdLxKX2asdKQukYjhJZZFWdGOehnHau9cCQ76865iHGOKtAPTIus7TPPbwYqqKiPbUW3P-aEIXj1Q\")
Old-school web browsing<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\nCompared to Myspace, Netscape practically emerged from the primordial mists of the early World Wide Web. Launched in late 1994, Netscape Navigator was the first web browser available to the average home or small business computer user-until Microsoft countered with Internet Explorer in the second half of 1995 and kicked off the browser wars. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
By 1998, Netscape was falling behind Explorer, which Microsoft bundled with its Windows releases. That same year, Netscape made its source code public. Even though Netscape had lost market share to Microsoft and gave away its code, AOL (remember them?) spent more than $4 billion to buy Netscape in 1999. What followed was a decade of staff cuts, outsourcing and attempts to keep Netscape and AOL relevant. In 2008, Netscape was finished<\/a> as a browser. <\/p>\n\n\n\nHowever, several of Netscape\u2019s innovations are still with us. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
- The Mozilla Foundation–named for Netscape\u2019s mascot–used Netscape\u2019s open-source code to develop Firefox, which topped TechRadar\u2019s list of 2019\u2019s best browsers. <\/li>
- Netscape helped create the JavaScript programming language that underpins most websites and Android apps.<\/li>
- Netscape also developed the Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) protocol. So the next time you renew your site\u2019s SSL certificate<\/a>, thank Netscape for protecting your customers\u2019 data from man-in-the-middle attacks.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n
What Happened to AIM?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n![\"aol](\"https:\/\/lh5.googleusercontent.com\/3TCnfpXXQpMkA61GHTjV_erATHzwnprwwmRp3r8QyiiTFDiE6UV5TOFH1ovnGMI-EnNgIfcGOmw_sosew_NtddxJ5rts1Du_h6Pr1r5tR5TC7YPTihAIK1TczvUcI8tHKFdgXV2RhjlUMHwTZQ\")
<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\nAOL Instant Messenger (AIM) debuted in 1997. It gave everyone, AOL user or not, a way to chat with people on their 'Buddy List'\u009d and later with AIM\u2019s chatbots. At a time before social media and smartphones, AIM turned users\u2019 desktop computers into portals for real-time conversations. As its popularity grew, AOL released more versions of AIM for everything from the Palm Pilot and BlackBerry to iOS and Android devices.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It\u2019s hard to overstate what a huge deal AIM was<\/a>, especially for kids and teens who wanted to keep in touch with their friends. Typing away at the family computer didn\u2019t rack up long-distance fees, and it was less disruptive (and more private) than trying to have a conversation on the kitchen phone. <\/p>\n\n\n\nAIM was also the Millennial generation\u2019s introduction to using the emoticons and abbreviations that are second nature to smartphone and social media users today. Among AIM\u2019s fans was a young Mark Zuckerberg, who credits AIM for planting 'a lot of the seeds of what would become Facebook.'\u009d By 2001, according to Technology Review, there were 36 million AIM users. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Alas, AIM never made much money for AOL, and as AOL\u2019s star began to fade, so did AIM. When Facebook Messenger and Twitter came along, AIM suddenly looked stale. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
AOL pulled the plug on AIM in 2017, but AIM made chat part of our daily lives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
What Happened to Ask Jeeves?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
It\u2019s hard to imagine now, but there was a time in internet history when the only way to search was by typing keywords into a browser like Netscape or searching through different levels of information in a directory like Yahoo. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
If you wanted to ask a regular question instead of thinking like a computer, you were out of luck-until Ask Jeeves arrived on the scene in 1997. Jeeves, a cartoon butler, was happy to find answers based on either written questions or keyword searches. <\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"ask](\"https:\/\/lh4.googleusercontent.com\/gnork9rTDyCZnYBLebjffP0TuY9d8AzqLhZW2zNqu_3Ezjm-eG4BVHV5cDujCkzKJaJxqu8O3Z-qDQxtbb6g4X6aSkp1ojTnm4keny3BY8Xfv5FP5l5g27zNC4CahRQxWDa7f4Yb\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\nLike today\u2019s internet users who happily use voice search on their mobile phones and assistant devices, '\u02dc90s web surfers appreciated the humanity Jeeves brought to a jumbled and overwhelming internet. Within two years of launching, Ask Jeeves was answering a million questions a day. Soon, Jeeves had an agent in Hollywood and his own float in the Macy\u2019s Thanksgiving Day parade<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\nSo why isn\u2019t Jeeves still answering our internet questions? The dotcom bubble burst, the company\u2019s value tanked, and Google started its march to domination of the search engine market. Eventually the company showed Jeeves the door, rebranded as Ask.com and focused on listicle-type content. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Still, the idea that drove Ask Jeeves letting users communicate naturally to get information online lives on in Siri, Alexa and other voice assistants today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
What didn\u2019t<\/em> happen to Myspace? Myspace, founded in 2003, went from zero to world\u2019s biggest social network in four years. In that brief time, it won millions of users and launched countless careers (and derailed at least one) before slowly sliding into irrelevance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Teenagers and young adults flocked to Myspace to connect with each other and find new artists. Because users could upload songs and embed YouTube videos, Myspace became a hub for budding comedians, filmmakers and musicians who wanted to reach a big audience. Lily Allen, Arctic Monkeys, Ke$ha, Skrillex and Katy Perry<\/a> all used Myspace to share their early work. <\/p>\n\n\n\n In 2004 Myspace had the chance to buy Facebook but passed, because Mark Zuckerberg wanted a seemingly outrageous $75 million. The next year, Myspace spawned an epic bidding war between Fox News parent company News Corp. and media titan Viacom. News Corp. won, Viacom\u2019s CEO got fired for failing to land the deal, and Rupert Murdoch got to hang out with Myspace\u2019s creators. <\/p>\n\n\n\n By the mid-to-late 2000s, the social network had more than 100 million users worldwide. Myspace\u2019s time at the top was brief, though. Its site, according to a former VP, was a 'spaghetti-ball mess'\u009d that was hard to manage and maintain, as the Guardian reported in 2015. It was also increasingly unappealing to users, compared to the sleek design of Facebook. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Once Facebook started gaining traction, Myspace started to fade. Sold numerous times after it peaked, Myspace was briefly owned by Justin Timberlake and a group of co-investors who were sadly unable to bring MyspaceBack.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But don\u2019t let Myspace\u2019s sad tale of lost fame and fortune fool you. The site still gets about 8 million visitors per month. And it\u2019s still focused on music and videos–although it did lose 12 years\u2019 worth of content during a botched server migration revealed earlier this year. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The lessons of Myspace: Buy Facebook at $75 million, streamline your site and back up your data before you migrate to a new server or host<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Compared to Myspace, Netscape practically emerged from the primordial mists of the early World Wide Web. Launched in late 1994, Netscape Navigator was the first web browser available to the average home or small business computer user-until Microsoft countered with Internet Explorer in the second half of 1995 and kicked off the browser wars. <\/p>\n\n\n\n By 1998, Netscape was falling behind Explorer, which Microsoft bundled with its Windows releases. That same year, Netscape made its source code public. Even though Netscape had lost market share to Microsoft and gave away its code, AOL (remember them?) spent more than $4 billion to buy Netscape in 1999. What followed was a decade of staff cuts, outsourcing and attempts to keep Netscape and AOL relevant. In 2008, Netscape was finished<\/a> as a browser. <\/p>\n\n\n\n However, several of Netscape\u2019s innovations are still with us. <\/p>\n\n\n\n AOL Instant Messenger (AIM) debuted in 1997. It gave everyone, AOL user or not, a way to chat with people on their 'Buddy List'\u009d and later with AIM\u2019s chatbots. At a time before social media and smartphones, AIM turned users\u2019 desktop computers into portals for real-time conversations. As its popularity grew, AOL released more versions of AIM for everything from the Palm Pilot and BlackBerry to iOS and Android devices.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s hard to overstate what a huge deal AIM was<\/a>, especially for kids and teens who wanted to keep in touch with their friends. Typing away at the family computer didn\u2019t rack up long-distance fees, and it was less disruptive (and more private) than trying to have a conversation on the kitchen phone. <\/p>\n\n\n\n AIM was also the Millennial generation\u2019s introduction to using the emoticons and abbreviations that are second nature to smartphone and social media users today. Among AIM\u2019s fans was a young Mark Zuckerberg, who credits AIM for planting 'a lot of the seeds of what would become Facebook.'\u009d By 2001, according to Technology Review, there were 36 million AIM users. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Alas, AIM never made much money for AOL, and as AOL\u2019s star began to fade, so did AIM. When Facebook Messenger and Twitter came along, AIM suddenly looked stale. <\/p>\n\n\n\n AOL pulled the plug on AIM in 2017, but AIM made chat part of our daily lives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s hard to imagine now, but there was a time in internet history when the only way to search was by typing keywords into a browser like Netscape or searching through different levels of information in a directory like Yahoo. <\/p>\n\n\n\n If you wanted to ask a regular question instead of thinking like a computer, you were out of luck-until Ask Jeeves arrived on the scene in 1997. Jeeves, a cartoon butler, was happy to find answers based on either written questions or keyword searches. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Like today\u2019s internet users who happily use voice search on their mobile phones and assistant devices, '\u02dc90s web surfers appreciated the humanity Jeeves brought to a jumbled and overwhelming internet. Within two years of launching, Ask Jeeves was answering a million questions a day. Soon, Jeeves had an agent in Hollywood and his own float in the Macy\u2019s Thanksgiving Day parade<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n So why isn\u2019t Jeeves still answering our internet questions? The dotcom bubble burst, the company\u2019s value tanked, and Google started its march to domination of the search engine market. Eventually the company showed Jeeves the door, rebranded as Ask.com and focused on listicle-type content. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Still, the idea that drove Ask Jeeves letting users communicate naturally to get information online lives on in Siri, Alexa and other voice assistants today.<\/p>\n\n\n\nWhat Happened to Netscape?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
What Happened to AIM?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
What Happened to Ask Jeeves?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n