There’s learning from history, and then there’s laughing at history. And then there’s doing both at once. For the love of putting the Digital Age and publishers’ place in it in lighthearted perspective, we point you to the joys of The Internet Archives‘ delightful tool, “The Wayback Machine.”
For those of us who weren’t around then, one of the greatest joys of giggling over what publishers were doing on the web (or “the World Wide Web” as they used to say) ten years ago is imagining where we will have taken digital media by 2021. And also, what won’t have changed at all.
As they were in 2001:
Random House (please note the horoscope at the bottom of the page!!)
Workman (“vote for your favorite Civil War general.”)
Oxford University Press (Behold! The glowing CD-ROM cometh!)
And finally, much closer to home: Publishing Trends (“Got Contact?”)
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[…] Watson at Publishing Trendsetter had the fabulous idea to look at some American publishers’ websites as they were 10 years ago — in 2001. I’ve decided to highjack the idea for German […]
[…] Many thanks to international colleague Amanda DeMarco at Readux.net for sending us her “deutscher Twist” to last week’s “Ten Years on the Information Highway.” […]