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Show HN: Startup Timelines (bakztfuture.github.io)
111 points by bakztfuture on April 27, 2015 | hide | past | favorite | 26 comments



Great idea. However, from an implementation perspective, it's a little hard to tell what's going on with all the flashing images. Maybe show the first image by default, then wait for a mouseover or something to activate the animated gif.


I had the same initial reaction until I realized that you can click through on the gifs and reach a scrollable list.

Here's AirBnB's for example: http://bakztfuture.github.io/startuptimelines/airbnb/index.h...


Agreed - if the author was trying to highlight the kinds of things available on archive.org, it didn't quite work for me. Instead it just was a jumbled pile of images...

Maybe slower images with a link back to archive.org and let people navigate the timeline directly would be more appropriate.


Hi guys, thanks for the feedback. I haven't actually done any guerilla UI testing, I just shipped the code earlier today and went to bed haha.

I really want people to get "hooked" right off the bat on the homepage, so, I will try to come up with a better solution later tomorrow. I was initially gonna do mouseovers like above, but didn't feel that would work on mobile.


Click through one of the images, it's way cooler and more useful to see the changes over time.


This is great.

Here is a list of 20 (now) huge sites from when they launched. Apple and Twitter are particularly amusing.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/6125914/How-20-popular...


Was Youtube a dating site?


Sort of - YouTube started out as a Hot or Not with video.

"Chad and Steve agree that Karim deserves credit for the early idea that became, in Steve's words, "the original goal that we were working toward in the very beginning": a video version of HOTorNOT.com"

http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1570795...


Oh Drudge... never change, quite literally


Hey guys, thanks for all your feedback. Great to hear all the interest! haha

Again, please consider donating to the Internet Archive here: http://archive.org/donate/

Enter your email here to get notified when new Startup Timelines are posted: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/12gf3IJkzIal7qUT8Ts7Peuu4HPe... I wanted to include it somewhere on the homepage, but didn't want it to get too crammed.

I also thought it'd be a good idea to open source the background research I used here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Ri8JZtBPNyofw91eL1Es...

I'm here now if you guys have any further questions!


This is why I have started to integrate a screenshot step at the end of my build processes.


My friend also has his webcam take a selfie everytime he ships! haha it's so funny seeing him run through the images of his different facial expressions while working on a project


Good idea, it's also useful to catch UI/UX bugs much early.


This is awesome. I'd love to see more. Also a slider ability so we can progress/rewind the changes at our own pace.

Really insightful visualization.


Happy to hear! I would love to include that level of control in future builds. It is on github, so feel free to jump in ;)

If you'd like to get notified when new timelines are added, enter your email here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/12gf3IJkzIal7qUT8Ts7Peuu4HPe...


This is rad! Yeah I've used http://archive.org/web/ few times for recovering epic embarrassing ol' landing pages haha :)!


For those who found this interesting, here's a similar blog post I wrote a few weeks ago with some more examples: https://medium.com/making-things-people-want/the-ghosts-of-p...


Really motivating, thanks! Also makes me miss the layout practices circa 2008 — a simple ~800px centered container, plain & simple. No responsive Bootstrap-style voodoo, no fancy & bloated javascript extras.


I really like how when you click "how it works" on AirBNB's home page it scrolls up.

https://www.airbnb.com/


I think it would be pretty interesting to see something similar for Facebook's newsfeed.


Then you feel less complexed with outing a first version of your website! ;-)


This is great work Bakz!


Thank you Glenn!


Great idea and execution, Internet Archive rocks!


Thank you, I couldn't agree more, I have always felt the Internet Archive is a highly underrated resource!


Great concept, love seeing the timelapse!




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