When we talk these days about Google, it reminds me so much about Altavista.

"To borrow from the present, AltaVista was the Google of its era. In 1996, it was arguably the best and most-loved brand on the Web."

Whatever Happened to AltaVista, Our First Good Search Engine - #vice
https://www.vice.com/en/article/y3gn5v/whatever-happened-to-altavista-our-first-good-search-engine
(long article with technical history at the start that you might want t skip)
#Altavista vs #Google #search

I fucking miss AltaVista. #AltaVista #Search #SearchEngine

@DrOinFLA #AltaVista for the win!

Gaur #altavista-z irakurtzen (google aurreko bilatzailea) #goibista gogoratu dut, eta @luistxo-ren testu hau topatu dut #jakin-en
cc @Hitz_zentroa #retroinformatika

Que veloz que sería todo si volvieramos a ella ahora, cuando navegar era mismo navegar por miles de sitios hechos por gente real #internet #archive #nostalgia #recuerdos #retro #90s #altavista #yahoo #lycos #geocities

@thomasfuchs @nautje it was a good replacement for Altavista that had become an advertising agency.

This year I changed Google for Duckduckgo for the same reason.

#google #altavista #Duckduckgo

#AltaVista ou Alta Vista (littéralement « vue haute » en espagnol) était un #moteurderecherche du #WorldWideWeb . Il fut mis en ligne à l'adresse web altavista.digital.com en décembre 1995 et développé par des chercheurs de #DigitalEquipmentCorporation . Il fut le plus important moteur de recherche textuel utilisé avant son rachat.

https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/AltaVista

The last few days i had the realisation that the search result are really getting worse.
It reminded me of the last days of #AltaVista. You could still give your stuff but you needed to know which search terms to use. Refining your search and scroll some pages down.

I had the same experience several times the last few days.

Die zoekmachines had ik allemaal. En ik vond dat helemaal geen belachelijke vraag, Maarten. Maar ik heb vroeger lesgegeven in die materie (echt nog in de tijd van #altavista), dus een feest van herkenning #deslimstemens

I remember using #AltaVista on the side with my main go to #search site being #HotBot before #Google. I now always use #DuckDuckGo. https://twitter.com/johndelia/status/1619780981560610816

At 90s ending I uploaded my first #webpage in #Geocities: #html,#CSS,#JavaScript and I managed to fit results from some external CGIs.
Main concern was that it wasn't being indexed in #Altavista -a search engine of the time- and in those years making webpages seemed like it could be a job. Later, programs appeared that did them
Only when I signed up for a Twitter account,I saw it indexed in #Google.Then Lehman happened and u could comment on distrust, outrage in Twitter
In 2009 Geocities closed.

Craig #Hockenberry of #Twitterrific has thoughts.

Thoughts on the 🦤 site, and beyond.

https://furbo.org/2023/01/15/the-shit-show/

Centralization of services is nice in many ways, but it is subject to the users of those centralized services finding themselves and their processes and dependencies beholden to what can become "a $44 billion dollar version of MySpace", as Hockenberry put it.

And if you think this can't or won't happen with other major websites and services and vendors, guess again.

We've all seen a number of vendors and services fade from IT prominence and in other cases wholly disappear, including #IBM, #Microsoft, #DEC, #Compaq, #AltaVista, the #BUNCH, and myriad others.

I do appreciate the idea of unifying multiple information subscription services into one client too, as Hockenberry describes. I've long used RSS feeds and similar mechanisms to maintain access to ever-changing information sources, and rolling all that flow into one client—with ActivityPub and presumably with other common subscription protocols such as RSS—avoids adding dependencies on what can be fickle services providers.

Service provider interest and sponsorship and support of these client efforts will vary. Users avoiding establishing dependencies on services will probably be viewed as devaluing those services, which will make some of the service operators less than happy, and less than willing to invest, of course.

The ever-shifting foundations of IT are all fodder for thought.

https://www.w3.org/TR/activitypub/

#darktimes #webrings

"It may be hard to believe, but there was once a time on the internet before #Google existed. In those dark times, when you wanted to look for something, you had to use a site like #WebCrawler, #Lycos, #AltaVista (unless you live and Pawnee and are still using it), and #yahoo .
Yahoo back then wasn’t so much a search engine, as it was a #phonebook. It was a #hierarchical listing of #websites grouped together by #subject. 

http://insufficientscotty.com/2012/03/14/whatever-happened-to-webrings/

#google
most of us have noticed that google searches are getting much worse

Is anyone studying this ?

#compsci #internet #searchengine #altavista #northernlight #jeeves

@brewsterkahle @internetarchive @textfiles can anyone help me with explaining how the search on Internet Archive works? The other day I was trying to find something simple like the first landing page of #AltaVista and couldn’t find it… is that because it was too far back in time?

@dgil Calla! Que igual has dit #altavista! 🤣

Last night I discovered how far reaching the #Ottawa network here is on Mastodon. How about a little more regional...anyone in the #AltaVista area?

Getting the bang of #AltaVista off this site, please tell me it gets better 😭😭😭

RT @AVmartycarr@twitter.com

So grateful for all the volunteers helping me out- another 20 lawn signs requested today, temporarily out of stock but hoping they come in tomorrow! Great conversations about traffic, transit & development #altavista

Schon gewußt? #ITI

Die #Digital #Equipment #Corporation, auch als #DEC oder #Digital bezeichnet, war ein US-amerikanisches #IT-Unternehmen, welches von 1957 bis 1998 bestand und als #Pionier in der #Computerindustrie gilt.

Zu den bekannten (teilweise noch heute existierenden) Produkten zählen: #PDP- und #VAX-Computer, Betriebssystem #OpenVMS, 64-Bit-#Alpha-#Prozessor, #Suchmaschine #AltaVista, #VT-Terminals, #DLT-Bandtechnik u.a.

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Equipment_Corporation