Top 10 famous website that died
There's a lot of popular websites that we use every day, like Instagram and Facebook, and because we use them all the time, we don't really think of the world without them, or for that matter, what life was like before them. But things can change anytime, and just like the websites that we use every day, the website on this list was so popular, and one day just completely died. If you want to own an business, you can check the online businesses for sale.
Here are 10 websites that are vanished.
1) Altavista
Before Google begin everyone goes to the search engine, Altavista was extremely popular. It was 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 the search engine was that it had an advanced web crawler.
In 2003 Altavista started to wane and Google 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 use their own, keeping the brand. And as you can imagine, since it's on the list that wasn't exactly successful, and in 2013 Altavista was shut down for good.
2) 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 run similar service friends reunited took it to a whole another level, with just a couple years, they had nearly 3 million users. In 2005 the company was bought for 208 million dollars.
But between 2007 to 2008 it lost 47% of its user base. That was the same time Facebook had grown its UK based traffic by almost 2400%.
3) Yahoo Auctions
Yahoo auction was set up three years after eBay, in 1998, to challenge the king of auction sites. And just like eBay, Yahoo auction allowed users to list items that they wanted to sell. At that time Yahoo was a company in the ascendency, and one of the biggest names online, but eBay already had a head start, and it also provides a more reliable and safe way to buy items due to its rating systems.
But Yahoo shut down most of the service in America and other countries by 2007. But believe it or not, users were actually disappointed because the website had offered no fees listing, 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.
4) Nupedia
Nupedia was an online encyclopedia, which allowed users to search for a variety of topics. 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 the 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 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.
5) Vid me
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 the 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 created 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 couldn't be paid for through their advertising or a subscription model. But despite closing down Vidme 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.
6)Bebo
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 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 counts. But the brand has actually continued, and its founder has tried to relaunch the brand multiple times.
7) Delicious
Like many of the websites in 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 their devices and web browsers, Delicious became a kind of pointless. It ended up being acquired in 2017 by the competitor Pinboard, which discontinued the service once for all so that it could promote its own website to the delicious user base.
8) Geocities
It was 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.
Geocities finally shut down the United States server in October 2009, and with that, believe or not 38 million user-built websites disappeared.
9) Gawker
Gawker was founded by Nick Denton and Elizabeth Spires, Gawker was a blog that reported on the 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. this once popular website. There were 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 the video footage of the Hulkster having sex. He was awarded $140 million in damages, and in June of 2016, as a result of this, Gawker had to announce bankruptcy.
10) MySpace
Who remembers MySpace? These are good memories. MySpace has been on life support for a long time. We really should 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 6 feet under.
MySpace was a social networking site that was a precursor to Facebook. You could post your profile and MySpace even provided your first request, Tom. Tom was the co-founder of the site and obviously lonely. Between 2004 and 2010, it was easily the largest social networking site in the world, but by the time 2008 came along. MySpace sun was beginning to set.
Yeah as would you imagine, the 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 per month.