While I was cruising the Wayback Machine for semi-dodgy content, I also checked out my first attempt at Travoholic.com from November 2000. I got all nostalgic and started to think about my early memories of the Web which mostly involved frustrating attempts at finding information about backpacking around the world. The pickings were slim in those days.
The lack of information, especially on hostels, is what inspired me to get started on my own site. But Travoholic wasn’t my first ever attempt at an online presence. My first site was called ‘All Things Canuck’ and it was hosted for free somewhere but do I have a clue where? Sadly, no. I really wish I knew the URL so I could find it because you will never see a page with more pink and red flashing, spinning, seizure-inducing maple leaves in your life. It was a site about, well, all things Canadian and I think I went a bit overboard with the patriotism. Keeping with the theme of most sites from the 90’s, it was hideous. But it was mine and I liked it. Sort of.
Ah but those were the good ol’ days. When everyone’s websites sucked and content truly was the only thing that set you apart. Invisible tables had only been discovered by a select few and most sites were riddled with giant H1 tags, animated clipart, default blue links, and a web ring membership at the bottom of the page.
Driven to act by a lack of useful information on backpacking (mainly hostel reviews) and the scary design of 99% of the sites on the Web, I was inspired to have a more serious go at building my own site and All Things Canuck was laid to rest (thankfully) and Travoholic was born. Now I too had a site completely lacking in any good information with a lame design, but it was my own so it made it ok.
I was inspired to build my site by other sites that I didn’t think were doing a good job. The main one was Hostels.com which had a huge directory of hostels and contact details, but no information about whether the hostels were any good. Another was BUG Europe which had some great backpacking information, but let people down in the area of hostel reviews as well. Not long after I started my site, they set up a great review system and have one of the largest colelctions of reviews out there. That should have been me! Oh well… stupid university.
Back in those days I had never dreamed that I’d be able to make money from my site. The only thing that seemed to be offering money was Commission Junction (I think that’s who was running it) with their banners that paid $0.00000001 per view. Or something like that. Considering my pages weren’t getting any love, I think I earned about $0.00003 and then decided to take them off and gave up the idea that money could be made.
So I was wondering how many of you guys got into building websites fairly early? Do you remember what sites inspired you to build your own? Did you predict that it would be a money maker or were you just in it to learn a new skill and share some information? Is your first ever site long gone, or still around?
Go on… hit up the Wayback Machine and show us some of your early attempts!
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