- Man, I am so glad YouTube is still around,
because where would a baldo like me
find work with a mug like this, huh?
There's a lot of popular websites that we use everyday,
things like Instagram and Facebook,
and because we use them all the time,
we don't ever really think of the world without them,
or for that matter, what life was like before them.
But things can change at any time,
and just like the websites that we use everyday,
the websites on this list were once super popular,
and one day just completely died.
(upbeat instrumental music)
(evil laughter)
Here are 10 famous websites that died.
(upbeat instrumental music)
Number 10 is Altavista.
(upbeat instrumental music)
Before Google became everyone's go to search engine,
Altavista was extremely popular.
Launched in 1995, Altavista allowed web users
to find content quickly and reliably.
It had a whole index of websites and,
you know, what a search engine is.
But what put Altavista ahead of other search engines
was that it had an advanced web crawler,
not like Spider-Man, it's a techy term.
Stay with me, people.
A web crawler is bod which trawls the internet
looking for websites so that when users Google,
I mean Altavista a search term,
the information about those websites is ready at hand.
In 2003, however, Altavista started to wane
and Google's domination was assured,
which is really good because no one would ever say,
oh I just Altavista'd that.
Yahoo purchased Altavista,
but threw out the old web search engine
and just used their own, keeping the brand.
And as you can imagine, since it's on this list,
that wasn't exactly successful,
and in 2013, Altavista was shut down for good.
Number nine is Friends Reunited.
Back in 1999, the idea of an online social network
was revolutionary, but long before titans
like Twitter and Facebook came along,
a little UK based website tried out that concept.
It was called Friends Reunited,
and it allowed users to join networks
based on what school they attended.
This scratched the little nostalgic itch
for those wanting to see what their old buddies were up to.
While a previous US website called classmate.com
had ran a similar service, Friends Reunited took it
to a whole nother level.
Within just a couple years,
they had nearly three million users.
In 2005, the company was bought for 208 million dollars.
Who spent that money on this piece of crap?
But between 2007 and 2008, it lost 47% of its user base.
Coincidentally, that was the same time that Facebook
had grown its UK based traffic by almost 2400%.
To be honest, I don't really blame them
for not seeing Facebook as a threat
because it's called Facebook.
That's like being afraid of a company called Leg At.
Number eight is Yahoo Auctions.
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Yahoo Auctions was set up three years after eBay, in 1998,
to challenge the king of auction sites.
And just like eBay, Yahoo Auctions allowed users
to list items that they wanted to sell.
At that time, Yahoo was a company in ascendency,
and one of the biggest names online,
but eBay already had a head start,
and it also provided a more reliable
and safe way to buy items due to its rating system.
But Yahoo shut down most of the service in America
and other countries by 2007.
But believe it or not,
users were actually really disappointed
because the website had offered no fee listings,
very much unlike eBay at the time.
But it gets even weirder because in a bizarre move,
when Yahoo Auctions shut down its UK and Ireland service,
it actually endorsed its main rival.
Yahoo stated that eBay was its preferred service
and that users looking for something similar
to Yahoo Auctions should actually use it.
Sounds like a pay off, oh, but that's none of my business.
Number seven is Nupedia.
(upbeat instrumental music)
Nupedia was an online encyclopedia,
which allowed users to search a variety of topics.
How to restore hair.
Lasting just four short years between 1999 and 2003,
Nupedia had a strict peer review process, unlike Wikipedia.
Volunteer contributors would write articles
on the chosen topics, but they wouldn't go live immediately.
They would have to be reviewed by a panel of experts first.
The idea was that this would ensure a level of quality
similar to published journals.
Unfortunately only 21 articles ever passed
the peer review process in the first year.
Now let's compare that to Wikipedia,
who published 10 times that number in its first month alone.
So yeah, you can see why it became popular
and Nupedia didn't.
Still, it did pave the way for Wikipedia,
so let's all raise a glass to the memory of Nupedia.
Unless you have an alcohol problem,
in which case that wold be a bad idea.
Number six is Vid Me.
(upbeat instrumental music)
YouTube popularized video sharing,
and though several websites have tried
to emulate its success, most have failed.
Well Vid Me was one of those most recent attempts
to do this.
As YouTube reduced creator's ability
to make money from ads due to the unbelievable number
of controversies on the site,
Vid Me, founded in 2014, stepped in and offered creators
another avenue to make money from their videos.
This crated an influx of content,
but unfortunately the website was shut down
on December first, 2017.
This was because the cost of hosting millions
of user generated videos could not be paid for
through their advertising or a subscription model.
But despite closing down, Vid Me was widely praised
for at least trying to provide
another video hosting platform,
and video creators continued to look
for other ways to expand their revenue.
Unlike me, everything's just fine.
Ad revenue's fine, I'm not, I'm not worried at all.
Number five is Bebo.
(upbeat instrumental music)
Bebo was launched in 2005 and was a tremendously successful
social media platform for a number of years.
The website was popular in several regions
and registered over 10 million users in the UK alone.
As its popularity soared, Bebo attracted big name companies
and was bought for 850 million dollars in 2008.
What separated Bebo from its competition
was that its social media profiles were completely modular
and customizable.
Unlike pretty much every social media site today,
Bebo profiles could look completely unique.
Unfortunately, the juggernaut that is Facebook,
which killed off a number of websites on this list,
took Bebo to the ground for the three count,
but the brand has actually continued,
and its founders have tried to relaunch
the brand multiple times.
Ah, don't worry, little Bebo.
You'll get there one day, little buddy.
Number four is Delicious.
(upbeat instrumental music)
Like many of the websites on this list,
Delicious was innovative and forward thinking,
but just couldn't stay ahead of the pack forever.
Much like StumbleUpon and Pinboard,
which came along after it,
Delicious popularized the idea of social bookmarking.
This allowed users to tag and organize online content
in a fun and accessible way.
When it was released in 2007, Delicious took off
in a big way, but with the advent of cloud storage
and people being able to save their bookmarks
across devices and their browsers,
Delicious became kind of pointless.
It ended up being acquired in 2017
by the competitor Pinboard, which discontinued the service
once and for all so that it could promote its own website
to the Delicious user base.
Uh, Delicious user base.
That should have been our tagline.
Our users are delicious.
Number three is Geocities.
(upbeat instrumental music)
Launched in 1994 and originally called
Beverly Hills Internet, Geocities became
the third most popular website in the world in 99.
It allowed users to create their own website,
which Geocities would host and place in a browsable
directory of a relevant topic.
Bigbootygoats.com, oh yeah, let's do it.
For example, if you made a website
about the entertainment industry,
it would be placed in the Hollywood city,
allowing people interested in your chosen topic
to find your content.
Well times change and a number of competing websites
devised more accessible and professional ways
to build a website.
Geocities finally shut down the United States server
in October of 2009, and with that,
believe it or not,
38 million user built websites disappeared.
Rest in peace, Big Booty Goats.
Number two is Gawker.
(upbeat instrumental music)
Founded by Nick Denton and Elizabeth Spires,
Gawker was a blog which reported on lives of celebrities.
Initially it covered news in the Manhattan area
of New York, but soon expanded its reach,
and eventually had over 23 million visitors every month,
and that was as recent as 2015.
So you might be saying but man, what happened?
Well a series of problems soon sank
this once popular website.
There was a number of allegations of copyright abuse
and quoting sources that were supposed to be
off the record, but that wasn't even the worst part.
The killer blow was actually landed by Hulk Hogan,
and no, this is not a joke.
He sued Gawker for publishing video footage
of the Hulkster having sex.
Oh yeah, but to give you the pile driver, brother.
What you gonna do?
He was awarded 140 million dollars in damages,
and on June 10th of 2016, as a result of this,
Gawker had to announce bankruptcy.
And number one is Myspace.
(upbeat instrumental music)
Who remembers Myspace?
This is good memories.
Perhaps not quite dead, as of 2018,
but Myspace has been on life support for a long time.
We really should just pull the plug
and put it out of its misery.
Well even if the website isn't dead,
the original intention of it is now lying six feet unda.
Myspace was a social networking site,
which was a precursor to Facebook.
You could post your profile and Myspace even provided
your first friend request, Tom.
Tom was the co founder of the site
and obviously very lonely.
Between 2004 and 2010, it was easily
the largest social networking site in the world,
but by the time 2008 came along,
Myspace's sun was beginning to set.
Yeah, as you would imagine, that pesky Facebook came along
and revolutionized social media forever.
Myspace seemed really outdated by comparison.
Since then, Myspace has moved towards being a platform
for artists and musicians to build a following
and still amasses 50 million visits a month.
But let's be honest, it's on its way out.
Plus you can't friend Tom anymore.
I miss Tom.
And that's it.
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Thanks for watching and I'll see you in the next video.
Goodbye now.