Technology changes at a rapid pace.
Back in my Navy days, there were no digital cameras. You didn't know what your pictures looked like until you finished a whole role and sent them out for developing and printing. As we're getting closer to our big move, we're verifying what to keep, what to donate, and what to toss, and among the things I'm finding are stacks of photos from my days at Annapolis and my time in the Fleet. Our scanner is black and white, so if I want color, I can use my phone to take a picture and crop it down to just the photo. (and the guy in the picture? Had no idea he'd spend decades helping people buy and sell homes!)
When I look at the earliest versions of our real estate websites, calling it simplistic is being kind. Just the bare bones, although even then we had a category for patio homes!
If you go to Wayback Machine (web.archive.org), you can enter any website URL and find the history of that URL. Our current main website has history back to 2011, and we can use the calendar to find the archive dates and then see what the website looked like on that day.
Want to see what Amazon looked like in 1999? You can do that! Look into the past when Playstation 2 was the current version.
And there is some practical use for the web archive too. Cincinnati has a HUGE art fair every year called Summerfair. Hundreds of artists and creative types from all over the country spend 3 days showing and selling their wares at a site next to the Ohio River. We don't go every year, but when we do we usually come away with something artistic for our flower gardens. In the past I've loved the copper wind spinners produced by one of the artists, but I could never quite bring myself to make the purchase, but this year was going to be different! We were ready to buy one or two for our new place and the mountain breezes that will be there.
Except...he wasn't there, and I didn't know his name to look him up. And Google searches kept sending me to Made In China wind spinners, but not the guy I wanted to find. And the current Summerfair website only lists the current year participants (and the trick of changing the year in the URL just 404'd me).
But Wayback Machine? It had versions of Summerfairs past when vendors from 2018/19/20/21/22 were listed. Some digging through the metal category of artists soon identified the guy with the copper wind spinners and his website name. We can now see his current offerings and make our order once we decide which version we want.
Looking into the past is possible with today's technology, and not just for the sake of nostalgia. There are practical uses too, if you want. (e.g. you can check out your AR Outside Blogs if you can remember the URL).
Until next Tuesday, just Ask An Ambassador if you need help,
Bill & Liz aka BLiz
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