Nine Forgotten Sites That Once Looked Like They’d Rule The Internet

What went wrong with these Web 2.0 sites from 20 years ago?

Wayback in the mid-2000s, I enrolled in a part-time Master’s programme. A portion of the research involves looking into what we then knew as Web 2.0.

What exactly did we mean by the term “Web 2.0”?

In its most basic form, Web 2.0 characterised the move from the Internet being something we looked at — like a brochure or magazine site — to something we engaged with and made contributions towards.

Think of the contrast between the Encyclopaedia Britannica and Wikipedia as an easy way to understand what I’m talking about.

Many 2.0 sites have endured and continue to exist today because of their innovative design and functionality. Facebook is likely the most well-known of these platforms. Then there’s YouTube, Twitter, and a host of other options. Medium itself is a more recent example.

There were MANY others as well. I saw a list of over 130 Web 2.0 start-ups, many of which came and went — and, to be honest, aren’t much of a loss.

However, there are others who flattered to deceive.

They appeared to be long-term participants in the Web 2.0 space. However, for a variety of reasons, they could not survive. We barely remember the names of some of them any longer.

Here are nine Web 2.0 sites that appeared to be on the verge of becoming huge twenty years ago, but have now faded into obscurity.

1. Digg

Digg was extremely popular in the late 2000s. It was a social bookmarking and aggregation website with a straightforward design that was quite addictive. You could either “dig” stories or “bury” them. It was kind of like giving a thumbs up or thumbs down — but cooler.

The introduction of the Facebook “like” button resulted in a significant decline in Digg traffic, prompting the firm to launch a disastrous site redesign in 2010.

The company, which was previously valued at $175 million, was sold for half a million dollars after its traffic collapsed.

Digg is still in operation as a news aggregation feed, but it is a shell of the company that it once was.

2. Friend Feed

Friend Feed was a social networking site that aggregated information from a variety of video, photo, social networking, and blogging websites. This resulted in a personalised feed, which users could then share with their contacts through the site.

Friend Feed was a brilliant idea that never quite took off in the ever-changing social networking market. It was an underdog that never quite made it. When the company was purchased by Facebook in 2009, there were strong expectations that the concept would catch on. Facebook lacked an obvious strategy for the brand, and the company limped through until they shut it down in 2015.

3. Delicious

Users could bookmark websites and then ‘tag’ them in order to share them with other users on the Delicious platform. Delicious was the dominant player in the sub-genre known as social bookmarking, founded in 2005.

This was the first instance of what we now refer to as ‘tagging,’ the now-familiar concept of grouping content together according to subject. Delicious allowed users to organise labelled content into ‘stacks,’ which you could share with other users.

Yahoo purchased delicious in 2005, however it became apparent that Yahoo did not know what to do with the brand, and it quickly dropped from the public eye before being closed down.

4. Google+

A disastrous entry into social networking, Google+ was the company’s attempt to compete with Facebook. However, by its launch in 2011, it was too late to make a significant dent in Facebook, which had already gained a strong foothold in the market by that time.

With a revolving door of new features and tools, as well as various redesigns, Google+ never achieved the critical mass of users necessary to make it financially sustainable. The site eventually shut down in 2019.

5. Last FM

A feature known as ‘auto scrobbling’ allowed users to have their listening habits analysed by Last FM, which was a music-based social networking site.

The site used the Last FM player to bring in songs, which resulted in an evolving feed of users’ favourite tracks and recommendations.

Eventually, in 2007, CBS bought the site and instituted a premium subscription model, which resulted in a significant reduction of visitors.

The development of streaming services such as Spotify and iTunes made it even more difficult for Last FM to survive, and while the site is still up and running, it is a shell of its former self.

6. Friends Reunited

Who remembers Friends Reunited? This was the social network that allowed users to re-connect with old school pals and college mates.

When it was first launched in 2000, the site quickly gained popularity, amassing 3.5 million subscribers in its first year.

After being acquired by the British television broadcaster ITV in 2007, the site deteriorated, and the rise of social media sites such as Facebook exacerbated the situation. They decommissioned the site in 2016.

7. Stumbleupon

Stumbleupon was a social recommendation engine that was founded in 2005.

Its primary mode of operation was through a browser plugin that allowed users to recommend websites. Users could then click on a stumble button to receive recommendations for similar sites in the future.

eBay bought out Stumbleupon in 2007. However, the new owners had no vision for the brand and failed to develop the idea.

The popularity of Stumbleupon waned over time, and it was eventually shut down completely in 2018.

8. Friendster

Friendster is a name that is barely known today, yet we once considered it to be one of the hottest technology firms around. Friendster, which was started in 2002, had over 1 million users before Mark Zuckerberg even launched Facebook in 2004.

Friendster made one of the most infamous blunders in the history of technology when it turned down a $30 million dollar offer from Google in 2003.

The rest, as they say, is history. When Facebook arrived on the scene, it quickly overtook Friendster, and within a couple of years Friendster was valued at less than 5% of that Google offer.

Friendster, which was always more popular in Asia than in the United States, turned into a gaming network by the late 2000s.

The idea was to complement rather than compete with Facebook, the site was eventually shut down in 2015.

9. MySpace

It’s difficult to recall that MySpace once towered over Facebook; it wasn’t until 2010 that Facebook eventually displaced MySpace from its throne of dominance.

Unlike Facebook, which was considered the domain of college and university students, MySpace was the place for the rest of us.

Its customisable home page, which could build an infinite number of (frankly) garish and eye-catching web pages, was a must-have for everyone growing up in the early 2000s.

Once again, it was an acquisition, this time by Rupert Murdoch’s News International, that dampened the brand’s innovative spirit and ultimately led to its collapse. After they made Facebook available to everyone on the Internet, MySpace began a precipitous decline that continues to this day.

They announced in 2016 that Time Inc had bought MySpace. Meredith acquired Time Inc in 2018. It is still active as a curated music and news website, albeit with a fraction of the traffic it received during its prime in the mid-2000s.

So here are nine social media platforms that once appeared to have the entire world at their feet.

Despite this, they are all either closed or a shell of the company they used to be.

Is your favourite not among this batch? Check out the follow up post — Nine MORE forgotten sites that once looked like they’d rule the Internet

Almost without exception, being acquired by entertainment or technology juggernauts was the final nail in the coffin of those who have gone by the wayside. Once shorn of the original creators’ innovation and creativity, most of these sites struggled to compete against the development of giants such as Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube.

I’m curious how many of these sites do you remember from back in the day?

Here’s the latest story in my Internet Memory Lane series where I look at those amazing 80s and 90s computer games

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