[Google Blogs] 2001: A search odyssey

From Google:

9/30/2008 03:59:00 PM

Now that we're a decade old, we figured we're long overdue for some spring cleaning. We started digging around our basement and found all kinds of junk: old Swedish fish, pigeon poop, Klingon translation books. Amazingly enough, hidden in a corner beneath Larry's and Sergey's original lab coats, we found a vintage search index in mint condition. We dusted it off and took it for a spin, gobsmacked to see how different the web was in early 2001. "iPod" did not refer to a music player, "youtube" was nonsense, and if you were looking for "Michael Phelps," chances are you meant the scientist, not the swimmer. "Wikipedia" was brand new. Remember "hanging chads"? (And speaking of that election-specific reference -- if you're a U.S. citizen, it's not too late: please register to vote.)

We had so much fun searching that we wanted to put this old index online for everyone to play with. We thought it'd be even cooler if we could actually see the full versions of the old web pages, so we worked with the Internet Archive to link to their cache of these pages from 2001. Step into the time machine and try a 2001 Google search.

For more information on this search, please read our FAQ.

Posted by Shirin Oskooi, Product Manager

Hmmm.... What to search for??? Something older than iPod, youtube and Wikipedia...? Hmmmm...
I know! I'll search for myself....

Results 1 - 10 of about 80 for Malachi de AElfweald. (0.01 seconds)

Hehe ;) Let's see... what's there... Oooh, Letter of Recommendation from the chair of the CS dept. I was listed as a Unix Wizard. And of course one of my favorite quotes of all time on our VAMPS (VAMPS Against Modern Political Systems - the political party I started and was registered with for about 10 years) guestbook:

Hehehe...VAMPS has a guestbook now? Excellent! I run an online index of political parties called The Political Lighthouse which has carried a listing for VAMPS since the last campaign. I was just dropping through while updating links. Thought you might like to know your party has more staying power than some of the big-name 3rd parties... like the Nazis and the Progressive Labour Party. Good luck in 2000!

Of course, it is always fun to look back at old webpages... like this one. To bad it can't access any of my old pages from 1993 :(

Mal