These days, just about everyone knows what YouTube is. Millions of users view videos from YouTube every day, watching everything from television episodes to self-produced commentaries and product reviews. In fact, YouTube is one of the best streaming video services out there, as we’ve covered before here at techgeeze. People love to download videos from YouTube, but what did we do online before YouTube came on the scene in 2005? This infographic, produced by the folks at YouTube Downloader, takes us on a trip down memory lane to see what we did in the days of yore.
Without ARPANET, created in 1969 to connect four university computers in an effort to share information, the Internet may have never been created. We didn’t see much use of it in our homes for quite a few years, though, using CD-ROMs to transfer information and install games for many years. Of course, before even those came on the scene, we had floppy disks (if you remember those, you’re an old-timer!)
During these early years, we spent quite a few hours playing games like Sim City, which was the predecessor to today’s insanely popular The Sims series. Other popular CD-ROMs included A.D.A.M., which was the WebMD of the 90s, and Maus, a CD-ROM companion to the novel.
Then, in 1989, Tim Berners-Lee created the Internet, and it eventually exploded and became popular throughout the world, even though it was used solely for work and business purposes before it went public. Not much entertainment value, until sites like AlbinoBlackSheep started posting Flash animation and other member-submitted digital media. Of course, we also had Snood, for games, and then Homestar Runner for more animated cartoons.
A few years later, we saw StumbleUpon, which was a great way to find videos before YouTube came around, then MySpace and Facebook. All of these sites provided hours of entertainment, until finally YouTube was founded in 2005. YouTube quickly became the go-to place for millions of people to find their videos to watch.