This week in class we've been asked to utilize this really cool website called the Wayback Machine to analyze a website that contains historic content. Colonial Williamsburg was perhaps one of the first historic (cultural might be a better word) sites to create a webpage, and I thought it would be fun to see how their page has evolved over the years.
The first screenshot the Wayback Machine has of the Colonial Williamsburg (hereafter referred to as CW) website is from February 22, 1997. Though 1997 does not seem like that long ago to me, and perhaps that gives away my age, the internet has definitely improved by leaps and bounds since then. The 1997 CW website isn't very pretty. It has a beige backdrop spotted with a handful of links, under which a photo or graphic image hovers to add interest. The links include information for how to visit CW, archival resources CW offers, a calendar of events, and educational information for teachers. To give you an idea of the quality of graphic images in 1997, I tried to save the CW banner to my computer to add it to this blog and it would not allow me to do it because the file type isn't new enough and is not compatible with modern technology. Click the link at the beginning of this paragraph and check out the banner at the top of the page. You won't believe how much it changes over the years.
The next screenshot I selected was for June 12, 2004. In less than a decade this website has already evolved monumentally. The banner at the top is no longer as cartoonish, and the quality of the photos displayed on the website is vastly improved. Informative links are no longer scattered haphazardly all over the webpage. In 2004 links to visitor information including directions to the site and an events calendar can be found in the upper right hand corner. More links beneath the CW logo at the top of the page provide information for teachers ("Explore and Learn"), offer visitors the opportunity to "Shop" online, and provide information on CW "Publications." You can also change the language of the entire site from English to any one of seven other languages with just the click of a mouse. The 2004 CW website is much more sophisticated, appears cleaner and more professional, has better quality images, and provides more information than its earlier counterpart.
The final screenshot I selected is from July 26, 2011. It is the last screenshot available from the Wayback Machine. The image from 2011 looks very similar to today's website. You will notice the CW brand logo is exactly the same (except the phrase "That the future may learn from the past" has been added beneath it) and remains at the top of the webpage. There are still links in the upper right hand corner, and a new link for information on hotels has appeared. The website isn't as dark now, it's the familiar light blue anyone who has visited the CW site recently will recognize. There are new links on the vertical left hand side of the screen. Most interestingly perhaps is the link to view museum collections. Appearing horizontally along the bottom of the webpage are "popular" links which include links to information on historic trades, a blog, and even a webcam (technology not readily available in 1997 when our earliest screenshot was taken). You'll also notice that beneath those links are more links, these with graphic images, that will allow you to tour CW online and there is even a link for activities for children. Technology has evolved to become more interactive, and CW has taken full advantage of the interactive technologies available. Today's website is very similar.
Over time the CW website has changed as technology improved and new technologies, like webcams, became more readily available. The quality of images posted to the web has greatly improved over the last decade, and this is evident in examining the evolution of the CW website. The 1997 CW webpage may appear to be clunky and outdated to us now, but at the time it represented cutting edge technology and was anything but clunky. It will be interesting to see how I'll think my own blog looked in a decade. Technology moves and improves so quickly, and as historians we have to find a way to keep up with it.
1 comment:
Thanks for incorporating links to the screen shots. That first one was amazing! Dr. Cox
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