Web Evolution Assignment
I chose to look at the evolution of People Magazine’s website whose earliest archive dates back to December 5, 1998. On this day, their website doesn’t have many pictures or images at all besides two small images towards the bottom. The page is very simple with not a lot of information and the font style is the same throughout the page. The main page is only links and doesn’t have a sophisticated look.
The first time I noticed the page begin to have photos and more on it was August 15, 2001. The page looks more filled than it initially did and has a clear image of People.com giving more clarity as to what webpage you are on. The font is also more colorful and there is a variety in font styles throughout the page.
On their page from June 2, 2004, there are more stories featured on the main page as well as more description to go with the headlines. The colors of the page are more subtle so it looks more professional at this point. The page looks organized and has a clearer layout than the previous pages.
This snapshot from September 3, 2006 is almost identical to the previous image from 2004. Although the quality of the pictures in the more recent site are clearer and look better than they did prior. Also, it seems they expanded their site and changed the layout with more sections for information.
I noticed the site made no significant changes in the years following 2006. They added some new tabs and added some new font styles and colors but overall there are no drastic changes to the site. One addition I noticed was the links to Facebook and Twitter which I’m sure increased their follows as well as led to more traffic on their site. I would assume there are not many changes because there were no big updates in this technology during this time. There was nothing else they could update it with and there was no reason to update. The snapshot below was taken March 1, 2012. So in that six year period, there were no significant changes to People’s online page which to me seemed like a long time to not update it.
In this image taken on February 28, 2014, their webpage seems very linked with their Facebook page. There are multiple links encouraging readers to share articles on Facebook and Tweet about them as well. I think this is interesting because it shows how the internet has evolved up to this point by having three different websites interconnect in this way. Also, there is a video posted in one of the articles which appears to be a fairly recent addition.
The final images are what People.com looks like today, February 16, 2017. It is a completely different layout than any of the past previous images. The layout is simple and lays it out so readers can scroll down from the most important (or what is most popular) news at the top and scrolls down to the least important or popular at the bottom. I think the simplicity of the page may be a response to readers today who do not want to scroll through and search for the news they want to see immediately. Today, readers look at websites differently than when the first image was taken in 1998 because technology has progressed so much and the evolution of this page displays that.
