At the start of my career in the early 2010s working in radio, I built out a lot of websites using several content management systems. These were all do-it-for free-from-scratch affairs. And while they are very dated by today’s standards, especially in the boxiness of the elements, it was a fun time in web design because there simply wasn’t the set-in-stone best practices that exist today. You could have fun, use garish colors, and go nuts with iFrames, javascript, and dubiously acquired copyrighted materials in ways you simply couldn’t get away wit, today.

All of these sites had built in Google ads in a time where this was a novel concept. The money earned was successfully used to offset marketing costs.

Are today’s websites superior? Absolutely. But does part me miss the ridiculousness of the Web 2.0 era? To find out that answer, you’ll have to visit my MySpace page.

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