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Web 1.0 - The Static Web PDF Print E-mail
Written by the Cyberspace Pursuit Team   

Web sites created in the so-called "Web 1.0" style are characterized by staticStatic web pages are pages usually consisting of HTML, that are not generated on-the-fly like most popular sites today, but instead exist in one, and only one, form on a server. They are not 'blog' or interactive pages web pages and therefore are very dull. These sites were largely created all at once by an individual or a team of programmers. They exist/ed solely to inform about something existing outside of cyberspace and include no interaction between the web user and page's creator.

How the Web 1.0 Internet Worked

       The internet's heart or "hearts" are known as internet servers. These servers are where all the web's informational data is stored. Because there are so many, tens of millions in fact, the internet can never fully be shut down.

       From these servers run streams of information that are then converted to a format which is decrypted by a modem at an ISPAn ISP or Internet Service Provider, is a company that accesses the internet, converts it to a sendable format, and sends it to its customers station. Once converted, the internet's data can be shipped in numerous ways. In the era of Web 1.0 the most popular was dial up in which the customers, when wishing to access the internet, connected a phone line to their modem and dialed their ISP server's number through their computer to receive access to the web. This had many disadvantages, in particular data transfer was very slow and as a result, the web browsing experience was very, very slow. In addition the connection was not 'always on' and prevented the user from making and receiving phone calls during the time the connection was in use.

http://www.learnthenet.com/english/html/13wworks.htm


 

Aside from its static content, the term "Web 1.0" also carrys with it some easily recognizable design style implications:

Framing

Web pages were organized into blocks or frames. Frames are a type of layout in which a webpage can display completely separate webpages within objects called "frames". This can be achieved through both these framesets, and inline frames. In framesets, the webpage is completely sectioned into frames each containing its own source. These pages have no content of their own. Inline frames function like a rectangular object on a webpage and are often used for site navigation.

 

 

Graphics

Web 1.0 typically overuses animated graphics. Animated or eye-straining graphics are commonly used for highly stylized text, backgrounds, filling up space that (for some reason) the designer felt needed filling. These graphics can (too) easily be found through repository sites which make money from advertising.

 

 

Tables

 Use of tables may be a good choice for looks and simplicity (to an extent), but also cause a variety of problems when used for anything but containing data. From an accessibility standpoint, tables may create problems for screen readers as well as display differently depending on browser types and versions. 

From a data transfer perspective, tables are very tag-heavy, that is, they can take up as much additional space as the content of the table (or more). Finally, in today's search engine driven web, a table layout can severely hurt business, as robots cannot process the table content as well as table-less content for site layout.

 

 

Style

Web 1.0 was all about relatively feeble attempts at styling and 3D looks. fonts and colors were abused with text, and no care given to uniformity. Webmasters also used the hover CSS property excessively.

 

Viewer/Webmaster Interaction

All correspondence between the web viewer and the webmaster was done by use of HTML forms submitted via e-mails. There were no comments or blog modules like we have in today's 'Web 2.0' world.

 

The Browser Wars/ Proprietary HTML Tags


In 1995, Microsoft Corporation created the Internet Explorer. At the time, Netscape was the primary web browser, but internet explorer's appealing style and format began to attract many web users, threatening Netscape's dominance and thus began the "Browser Wars." This 'war' was the dispute between these two browsers and the intense, constant competition and 'one-up-manship' they undertook to appeal to and win their customers.

During this 'war' both Internet Explorer and Netscape used different approaches to getting customers. A major way to do so was by use of proprietary HTML tags. Proprietary HTML tags were certain HTML codes that were distinct to either Explorer or Netscape. These were used quite frequently in both browsers to show off their capabilities to the users. Perhaps this is why Web 1.0 came to have such a reputation for corny graphics and designs. An example of one of these tags would be the 'marquee' which was used by Internet Explorer.

Hello World! I'm a marquee!!! Go Internet Explorer!!

Another, used by Netscape, was the 'blink' tag.

 

Blink! Blink! Be apart of Netscape!!!

 

Microsoft Corporation eventually won the browser war. This was done so because of a very smart market ploy. Even though Netscape initially had had an overwhelming market advantage over Internet Explorer, Microsoft Corporation supplied proprietary operating system software to approximately 90% of computers in the US. at that time.  Microsoft used this tremendous market leverage to 'bundle' its browser with its operating system and thereby pre-installed Internet Explorer and made it the default browser on literally millions of newly manufactured computers. Soon after, with contracts with AOL (an ISP) and a better structure to its browser platform, the market turned in their direction and remained so for the next decade.

The Dot-Com Bubble

Around 1995 investors increasingly saw an opportunity to increase their return on investment through the purchase of stock in seemingly exceptionally promising or fast growing technology companies.  Many of these companies were newly formed and relied heavily on a web-based online commercial presence and thus were termed "dot-coms", in reference to the suffix of their domain names.  This came at a time when capital (money to invest) was readily available and demand for stock increasing dramatically.  In a sentiment that then Federal Reserve Chairman Allen Greenspan publically warned was "Irrational exuberance," investors began bidding up stocks of newly formed companies that had little but an idea behind them on the hope profit was all but assured.  This hope proved to be misplaced.

After several years of intense speculative "demand fueled" buying, where many genuinely beleived that the expansion of the internet had created a fundamental change in business paradigms and valuations, the market was at an all time high. Eventually on March 10th of 2000, the NASDAQ peaked at 5,048 and then, with the coming of a collective market realization that such valuations were not justified and many of these companies had not made any money, nor were they likely to, the bubble burst.  in a short time, stock valuations, particularly of technology companies in the so-called "growth" sector, returned inexorably to earth and billions in investor capital was no more.  Web 1.0 did not live up to its promise, at least where investors were concerned.

Web 1.0 Use Today

Today there are still websites thay rely on the Web 1.0 format. Though many of these are 'roll-overs' from the transtition from Web 1.0 to 2.0, a few popular websites do use a 'non-interactive' style. Have you visited 'ustreas.gov' (US Department of Finance) or 'ed.gov' (Department of Education)?It may be understood that these are important websites and resources, but while they may look up-to-date they still follow a Web 1.0 style.