Website design has come A LONG way. If you don’t believe me, try visiting The Wayback Machine (which is an extension of Archive.org).
What did Facebook look like in 2005?
Facebook was just starting to pop up on the radar in 2005. As you can see, there is a picture of Mark Zuckerberg in the top left corner and he clearly endorsed the project by saying “a Mark Zuckerberg production” in the footer.
If you click here, you can scroll through time and see how it (or any other site) has evolved.
What happened when Google became Alphabet?
Something I find especially interesting is not how Google used to look, but what it used to stand for.
For years, Google built the best search engine and public trust. Many endorsed this trust because, in their code of conduct, the document started with, “Don’t be evil.”
“Don’t be evil.” Googlers generally apply those words to how we serve our users. But “Don’t be evil” is much more than that. Yes, it’s about providing our users unbiased access to information, focusing on their needs and giving them the best products and services that we can. But it’s also about doing the right thing more generally – following the law, acting honorably, and treating co-workers with courtesy and respect.
If you want to read more, here is a link to the document from The Wayback Machine.
Today, “Don’t be evil” has been removed and it happened right around the time that Google was reorganized to be just one company underneath a newly formed entity called Alphabet (abc.xyz).
This may not mean a lot, but tech companies making headlines these days. It isn’t for their innovation, though. Instead, it is for their lack of privacy protection and for how much money they are making selling the data that they collect from you.
Google has changed a lot since it became public and I am sad to see that many great startups lose their heart (and maybe soul) once that public offering money comes rolling in.
Something to definitely keep in mind as we continue through our information revolution…
Leave a Reply