Back in the age before search engines, the only way to find a site was usually to go to Yahoo! and find a category you liked. I tried, a lot, to get listed there, never did.
But I did do web rings. These were little image links you’d put at the bottom of your blog. You would get in touch with the owner of the web ring — like one for a band, or programming, or whatever, and they would give you a bit of code that would let you move forward or backward in the ring, of which you were now a member.
I don’t remember them being random. You’d just have neighbors. These rings typically weren’t super huge. Blogs died all the time back then, but I think most of the blogs I visited back then were on GeoCities, so they stuck around even if the owner lost interest.
Oh, I found one. I guess they did have some pretty advanced navigation.
Anyway. I want those to come back. I just want to hit a button and go somewhere that would be fun to go. I wrote a test program that will send you to a random site in my blogroll — the “Leap of Faith” button on the right there does that. I will probably add “previous” and “next” functionality, and I could probably return a list of all the sites as well.
Just taking baby steps for now…. anyway enjoy. More later.
The source code for the web ring is on GitHub if you want to give it a look. If you want the URL to the endpoint, you can find it by examining the button in dev tools.
I completely forgot about those. I used to link-hop through them on GeoCities he way I link-hop on YouTube now. I won’t say I miss them because what I remember most (And I don’t remember much…) is that mostly it was a disappointing experience, with few worthwhile discoveries. Still, at least it was nice to have the option.
How much does that cost you to host?
Speaking of ANCIENT tech, I was watching an old TV episode the other day (I think it was Stargate SG-1) and someone had a car phone. Remember those gizmos which had 5 minutes of glory between landlines and cell phones? I wonder how they worked? Were there cellular towers just for car phones? Were they satellite phones? I have no idea…
Spenser for Hire had one of those, I think, or maybe it was Magnum PI. One of those shows. I think it would have had to be satellite, right?
As for the cost, I am on my free year.
My AWS instructor said, at the end of the year, just delete that account and make a new one. Keep doing that.
Oh I ‘member!
I joined one for FRUA — Forgotten Realms Unlimited Adventures, kind of a proto-Neverwinter Nights (the Bioware circa 2000 one, not the MMO one). Although no DM set or even MP, FRUA let you build and share basic but still very cool, for the time, adventure modules.
You’d think we would have better tools now, but I think there was something special about the community that formed around web rings. Maybe because we were younger and newer at the time…