MS Comic Chat and their weird VR Chat, the former was always very lively and a great introduction to the world of IRC, the latter was just experimental and trippy.
Usenet and finding lively discussion, flamewars and so much porn and spam under one roof.
Instant Messengers like ICQ and AIM being the lifeblood of the social world.
I think the thing I miss the most is that there was so much to discover and discovering it was very much a word of mouth thing, you had to find links from friends, follow webrings and pointers from sites that made it onto Altavista and Yahoo (or astalavista for the less legit stuff), now everything is consolidated onto a handful of platforms, it feels less open than ever.
So many!
MS Comic Chat and their weird VR Chat, the former was always very lively and a great introduction to the world of IRC, the latter was just experimental and trippy.
Usenet and finding lively discussion, flamewars and so much porn and spam under one roof.
Instant Messengers like ICQ and AIM being the lifeblood of the social world.
I think the thing I miss the most is that there was so much to discover and discovering it was very much a word of mouth thing, you had to find links from friends, follow webrings and pointers from sites that made it onto Altavista and Yahoo (or astalavista for the less legit stuff), now everything is consolidated onto a handful of platforms, it feels less open than ever.
Oh my god - I’d completely forgotten about that place! I just checked and it’s stil alive: https://astalavista.box.sk/search/
I remember it being dark blue when I used it back in the 90s though.