Dropping a quick note to wish everyone at BOTW a happy 17th birthday. In internet years, that’s a LOOOOONG time.
BOTW was originally started as an awards site in ’94, the same year the precursor company to Netscape released the MOSAIC browser that helped bring the net into more public use. The prestigious “Best of the Web” awards were big stuff in the young internet community of the time, and ran into the late 1990’s. The awards were created in April of’94, and I suspect “spam” was invented about 5 minutes later.
Shortly after the awards program shut down the rights to BOTW were purchased by the infamous “BOTW boys” and developed as a general directory… and internet (as well as t-shirt and hoodie) history followed. You can see that story (and the 25% off BOTW promo code good thru end of the month) at the BOTW Blog post, Best of the Web 17th Birthday Promo.
Be sure to watch the 1994 video of Bryant Gumbels “What is the internet anyway?” dialogue with Katie Courie. How times have changed.
Incidentally, that blog is getting a makeover as we speak. Can’t wait to see the final product. It’s being set up to match the look of the much sleeker BOTW corporate site… http://bestoftheweb.com/ .
Nothing else exciting to add here, just figured I’d toss a little link love at this one so my webbie friends don’t miss out on the big BOTW birthday promo.
Rob Jones for President 
The Best of the Web corporate website looks really good!
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