Realizing Our Potential and Other First Impressions From Would Be Internet Powerhouses

Remember when Facebook first started? The homepage looked like the picture on the left and if you didn't type "the" before "facebook.com" you'd find yourself lost in cyberspace.

Why was the transition so seamless? When did we stop typing "the" and did anyone notice?




Or how about four short years ago when YouTube looked like this? We've come a long way. (If you're interested in seeing the way 20 other sites looked when they launched check out this great Telegraph collection here.)

Perhaps more important than memories of MS-DOS, floppy disks, and external hard drives though, is the fact that it's easy to forget the power we hold. It wasn't all that long ago when people never traveled much more than a few miles from where they were born. Letters were delivered via horseback and now we can send our words circling around the world with a few keystrokes.

It's miraculous and about as easy to forget as the days when we used to type "thefacebook.com."

***

Founded in 1986 but still current in a retro sort of way, Shudder to Think plays rock that walks the fence between gritty and surprisingly gentle.