Tech

Want to watch the 2007 YouTube again? The Museum of Old Versions is here

The Version Museum site is a kind of Internet Archive, but limited to a few reputable sites and applications. It shows, through screenshots, what sites were like before and how they have evolved over time.

It is thus: over time, websites are brought to evolve, if only in their graphic charter. Numerama has obviously not cut it off: since its founding in 2002, the site, which was then called Ratiatum, has undergone several changes, notably in 2008, 2014 and 2015. In 2021, the site will still experience some upheaval; we have sketched in broad outline the future of Numerama here.

Back to the past

Numerama is not the only site to experience transformations throughout its history. Many sites, whether first-rate or small, are changing to keep up with the evolution of web technologies, advances in ergonomics, changes in the size and shape of screens, but also trends. aesthetic. The Facebook of 2004 does not look too much like that of 2021.

Museum version 2
Some first captures showing Google, at the very beginning of his life.

To dive back into this past, Internet users have of course the possibility of rummaging in the memory of the web, with the Internet Archive service. The platform occasionally takes screenshots of web pages in order to keep track of them. Another way to do this is to visit the Version Museum site: less exhaustive than the Internet Archive, it focuses on a few large sites.

Above all, it also takes into account other themes: operating systems (Windows, Mac, iOS, etc.), applications (Photoshop, iTunes, Word, Internet Explorer, etc.), but also video games ( Mario Kart, Grand Theft Auto, etc.). The museum is certainly not exhaustive, but it sees its collection growing gradually. If you can’t find your favorite game, you can always try to come back later.

On the site side, Version Museum lists several screenshots for Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google Maps, Microsoft, Wikipedia, Yahoo or even Google and YouTube search. The site thus presents the evolution of the home page, but also, when appropriate, representative pages (such as a Wikipedia article or a video page on YouTube).

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