20 Years Ago on AOL.com: Dec. 31, 1998 -- Find Something to Do for New Year's Eve

December 31, 1998: The lead promo promises help to "Find the best spot in town to kick up your heels." If my recall of the content is correct, that meant a guide featuring Digital Cities listings of 2-4 options each for a few dozen US cities. (The coverage was neither wide nor deep.)

 The first text promo features last-minute, year-end tax tips:

[Series note: In the late 1990s, I programmed the content for the AOL.com home page, which relaunched with a new design on July 14, 1998. I printed screencaps and saved them. 20 years later, I'm scanning them in and posting them with a little commentary under the tag #20YearsAgoOnAOLcom.]

20 Years Ago on AOL.com: Dec. 30, 1998 -- Gwyneth Paltrow in "Shakespeare in Love"

December 30, 1998: We led with a Gwyneth Paltrow pic for a preview of Shakespeare in Love (which would open wide in January), then more text promos for top 10 things to do on AOL.COM [sic] and New Year's-fitness-themed shopping:

[Series note: In the late 1990s, I programmed the content for the AOL.com home page, which relaunched with a new design on July 14, 1998. I printed screencaps and saved them. 20 years later, I'm scanning them in and posting them with a little commentary under the tag #20YearsAgoOnAOLcom.]

20 Years Ago on AOL.com: Dec. 29, 1998 -- Entertainment Asylum's "You've Got Fans"

December 29, 1998: The lead text promo for cheap fairs to ski destination explicitly references the image (a standard stock photo of a skier shredding); other than that, very generic.

The first text promo, though, references voting for entertainers in something called You've Got Fans. According to the archived press release, the first annual You've Got Fans awards was an Entertainment Asylum crowdvoting contest, claimed in a Wired article to be the "world's largest online awards show."

I don't recall (and can't see) if there was a second.

[Series note: In the late 1990s, I programmed the content for the AOL.com home page, which relaunched with a new design on July 14, 1998. I printed screencaps and saved them. 20 years later, I'm scanning them in and posting them with a little commentary under the tag #20YearsAgoOnAOLcom.]

20 Years Ago on AOL.com: Dec. 28, 1998 -- More Mega Sale

December 28, 1998: Another promo for the Mega Sale. At least we used a better graphic this time. Then another top 10-ish list. We used a lot of Top 10s, until we got guidance a while later that odd numbers seemed to get better clickthroughs:

[Series note: In the late 1990s, I programmed the content for the AOL.com home page, which relaunched with a new design on July 14, 1998. I printed screencaps and saved them. 20 years later, I'm scanning them in and posting them with a little commentary under the tag #20YearsAgoOnAOLcom.]

20 Years Ago on AOL.com: Dec. 27, 1998 -- Holiday Interstitial Week

December 27, 1998: The week between Christmas and New Year's was even more generic than usual, with some loose acknowledgement of holiday gifts and upcoming New Year's resolutions.

I don't remember if I took time off. I have a feeling I didn't, instead going into the very dead and quiet office to do a few promos and take care of some other work while no one else was around.

[Series note: In the late 1990s, I programmed the content for the AOL.com home page, which relaunched with a new design on July 14, 1998. I printed screencaps and saved them. 20 years later, I'm scanning them in and posting them with a little commentary under the tag #20YearsAgoOnAOLcom.]

20 Years Ago on AOL.com: Dec. 26, 1998 -- Post-Holiday Top 10

December 26, 1998: For the day after Christmas, we featured a Top 10 list of AOL.com products and features, plus clothes shopping for the New Year (good luck getting anything in time):

[Series note: In the late 1990s, I programmed the content for the AOL.com home page, which relaunched with a new design on July 14, 1998. I printed screencaps and saved them. 20 years later, I'm scanning them in and posting them with a little commentary under the tag #20YearsAgoOnAOLcom.]

20 Years Ago on AOL.com: Dec. 25, 1998 -- Lara Croft for Christmas?

December 25, 1998: Nothing says Merry Christmas like a Tomb Raider 3 promo.

In a tactical shopping move, we also did a promo featuring tools to help people with their new Christmas computers.

Oh, and remember when I said we didn't have to promote You've Got Mail anymore? I was wrong -- we'd snuck it into a Web Centers column text promo:

[Series note: In the late 1990s, I programmed the content for the AOL.com home page, which relaunched with a new design on July 14, 1998. I printed screencaps and saved them. 20 years later, I'm scanning them in and posting them with a little commentary under the tag #20YearsAgoOnAOLcom.]

20 Years Ago on AOL.com: Dec. 24, 1998 -- Christmas Eve Mega Sale

December 24, 1998: For Christmas Eve, we pitched some sort of Mega Sale with a lead promo saying "A Creature Was Stirring... it was your mouse!"

In the Daily Essentials section, getting ready for post-Christmas, we changed "Holiday Shopping" to "Deals & Steals," while the dynamic My News headline references snow and freezing rain in the East:

[Series note: In the late 1990s, I programmed the content for the AOL.com home page, which relaunched with a new design on July 14, 1998. I printed screencaps and saved them. 20 years later, I'm scanning them in and posting them with a little commentary under the tag #20YearsAgoOnAOLcom.]

20 Years Ago on AOL.com: Dec. 23, 1998 -- Christmas Lights and Lara Croft

December 23, 1998: The lead graphic is Lara Croft (from Tomb Raider III) wearing a Santa hat. At this point, we were way past last-minute gifts (outside of gift cards and such), so we could stop beating the shopping drum so much. The other text promos were White Pages and buying books online.

The top headline is "Whoa, Baby, It's Cold Outside," which leads me to deduce two things: 1. There was a cold snap on the US East Coast, and 2. One of our human editors in the AOL Newsroom was indeed tweaking those headlines after they came off the wire.

Below the headline, you can see a late-season holiday customization: A string of mostly non-secular holiday lights. I think they were even animated.

[Series note: In the late 1990s, I programmed the content for the AOL.com home page, which relaunched with a new design on July 14, 1998. I printed screencaps and saved them. 20 years later, I'm scanning them in and posting them with a little commentary under the tag #20YearsAgoOnAOLcom.]

20 Years Ago on AOL.com: Dec. 22, 1998 -- Last-Minute Gifts, Holiday Survival, New Year's Planning

December 22, 1998: We're in the holiday home stretch, which you can see in last minute gifts [sic] promo recycled from just days earlier.

In the My News headline, we see "Clinton Drive for Censure Backed." Note that this is a snapshot of whatever headline was running at the time from the top of the AP wire. As far as I know, we weren't putting our weight behind censure over impeachment:

[Series note: In the late 1990s, I programmed the content for the AOL.com home page, which relaunched with a new design on July 14, 1998. I printed screencaps and saved them. 20 years later, I'm scanning them in and posting them with a little commentary under the tag #20YearsAgoOnAOLcom.]

20 Years Ago on AOL.com: Dec. 21, 1998 -- Online Stock Portfolios, and the Beginning of MoveOn.org?

December 21, 1998: Nothing notable about the top promo block: stock portfolios, winter fitness, educational toy shopping.

In Clinton impeachment news, the My News headline block says, "Ford, Carter Back Censure Proposal," which you can see included in this Post story (from the following day).

As folks might remember, the "Move On" in MoveOn.org originally came from "censure and move on," so in a roundabout way, we're kind of seeing the birth of that group.

[Series note: In the late 1990s, I programmed the content for the AOL.com home page, which relaunched with a new design on July 14, 1998. I printed screencaps and saved them. 20 years later, I'm scanning them in and posting them with a little commentary under the tag #20YearsAgoOnAOLcom.]

20 Years Ago on AOL.com: Dec. 20, 1998 -- New Cars for 1999, PC-Buying, and Holiday Outfits. Plus, What Was Buzzsaw?

December 20, 1998: The promo block featured a color scheme seemingly inspired by Yellow Cabs, with a standard holiday lineup. For updates on the Clinton impeachment, we let the dynamic news headline (not seen here) do the work.

In the ad block, the lower right house ad says "Buzzsaw Knows." I had to look it up, but it was apparently one of AOL's online humor plays. (Maybe an AOL Greenhouse project? Who knows?):

[Series note: In the late 1990s, I programmed the content for the AOL.com home page, which relaunched with a new design on July 14, 1998. I printed screencaps and saved them. 20 years later, I'm scanning them in and posting them with a little commentary under the tag #20YearsAgoOnAOLcom.]

20 Years Ago on AOL.com: Dec. 19, 1998 -- Last-Minute Gifts... Oh, and Clinton Impeached

December 19, 1998: Last-minute gifts in the top spot, plus Plan a Night Out and more shopping for gifts that wouldn't arrive until after Christmas.

Oh, and it's not reflected in this preview screenshot, but the House voted to impeach President Bill Clinton.

I may be conflating memories of the Starr Report or other events from the scandal, but I seem to recall being in the office for this, even though it was a Saturday. Here's the reason: The dynamic My News headline (which we don't see in this preview) worked by pulling in a bit of HTML via an include file; the HTML snippet included the text, link, and a bit of formatting.

The My News team, with their eye on the historical weight of the event, decided to pump up the font size so there was a big "CLINTON IMPEACHED" headline in the middle of the page. But previously, our managing editor had made the call that, for the AOL.com home page, we'd treat impeachement like any other news event, and give the headline the regular weight. So I worked with the My News team to remove the extra emphasis.

[Series note: In the late 1990s, I programmed the content for the AOL.com home page, which relaunched with a new design on July 14, 1998. I printed screencaps and saved them. 20 years later, I'm scanning them in and posting them with a little commentary under the tag #20YearsAgoOnAOLcom.]

20 Years Ago on AOL.com: Dec. 18, 1998 -- Does "You've Got Mail" Deliver?

December 18, 1998: You've Got Mail finally opened, which means we could finally stop promoting it. The other text promos include another riff on the infamous spam headline, "Make Money Fast," and a rhyme for cards, flowers, and candy.

In the news headline, we see that the House of Representatives began the Clinton impeachment debate. Not captured in the headline: Speaker-Designate of the House Bob Livington also admitted to his own marital infidelity. (He would later step down.)

[Series note: In the late 1990s, I programmed the content for the AOL.com home page, which relaunched with a new design on July 14, 1998. I printed screencaps and saved them. 20 years later, I'm scanning them in and posting them with a little commentary under the tag #20YearsAgoOnAOLcom.]

20 Years Ago on AOL.com: Dec. 17, 1998 -- Desert Fox, Day 2

December 17, 1998: Continuing on with Day 2 of Operation Desert Fox, the US/UK airstrikes against Iraq.

As a preview, this doesn't show the My News dynamic headline. However, this does show a tweak in the Free Products column: The AOL mailbox icon and a little promo that said, "You've got mail with AOL NetMail!"

[Series note: In the late 1990s, I programmed the content for the AOL.com home page, which relaunched with a new design on July 14, 1998. I printed screencaps and saved them. 20 years later, I'm scanning them in and posting them with a little commentary under the tag #20YearsAgoOnAOLcom.]

20 Years Ago on AOL.com: Dec. 16, 1998 -- When Suddenly, Desert Fox (the US Bombs Iraq)

December 16, 1998: The day started off with a boxy laptop promoting online stock portfolios, genealogy, and CDs (with headline snapshot of VP Gore's appeal for bipartisanship in the Clinton impeachment debate), when suddenly...

The US and UK launched airstrikes and cruise missiles against Iraq in Operation Desert Fox, an escalation in the long-running weapons inspection drama featuring the UN and Saddam Hussein... and which just happened to bump the impeachment proceedings out of the headlines for a few days:

[Series note: In the late 1990s, I programmed the content for the AOL.com home page, which relaunched with a new design on July 14, 1998. I printed screencaps and saved them. 20 years later, I'm scanning them in and posting them with a little commentary under the tag #20YearsAgoOnAOLcom.]

20 Years Ago on AOL.com: Dec. 15, 1998 -- 10 Days 'Til Christmas

December 15, 1998: More holiday shopping, with the Perfect Gift Catalog and a pragmatic exhortation to buy now to avoid rush shipping fees.

In the advertisement block, we have side-by-side "100 Hours Free/100 Free Hours" Try AOL ads; the My News headline says "Clinton Faces Pro-Impeachment Trend":

[Series note: In the late 1990s, I programmed the content for the AOL.com home page, which relaunched with a new design on July 14, 1998. I printed screencaps and saved them. 20 years later, I'm scanning them in and posting them with a little commentary under the tag #20YearsAgoOnAOLcom.]

20 Years Ago on AOL.com: Dec. 14, 1998 -- We've Got "You've Got Mail!"

December 14, 1998: I like the silly rhythm of the headline promoting synergy. The movie would open later in the week. The other text promos featured a "Get Rich Quick?" Personal Finance headline (riffing on fairly common spam subject lines), and a weight/wait pun.

The My News headline captured here refers to President Clinton's Middle East 3-day trip:

[Series note: In the late 1990s, I programmed the content for the AOL.com home page, which relaunched with a new design on July 14, 1998. I printed screencaps and saved them. 20 years later, I'm scanning them in and posting them with a little commentary under the tag #20YearsAgoOnAOLcom.]

20 Years Ago on AOL.com: Dec. 13, 1998 -- More Holiday Shopping

December 13, 1998: 12 days to Christmas and my true love gave to me... a generic holiday shopping promo, holiday survival tips, and holiday vitamins:

[Series note: In the late 1990s, I programmed the content for the AOL.com home page, which relaunched with a new design on July 14, 1998. I printed screencaps and saved them. 20 years later, I'm scanning them in and posting them with a little commentary under the tag #20YearsAgoOnAOLcom.]

20 Years Ago on AOL.com: Dec. 12, 1998 -- More Furby, Heisman Award

December 12, 1998: Another Furby story; not sure if we were linking to a vendor who had Furbies available at insane markup or if we were just pointing to a news story.

The first text promo references the Heisman trophy award ceremony; Ricky Williams took it.

[Series note: In the late 1990s, I programmed the content for the AOL.com home page, which relaunched with a new design on July 14, 1998. I printed screencaps and saved them. 20 years later, I'm scanning them in and posting them with a little commentary under the tag #20YearsAgoOnAOLcom.]

20 Years Ago on AOL.com: Dec. 11, 1998 -- "Insurrection" and Impeachment Vote

December 11, 1998: The lead graphic promo features Star Trek: Insurrection and a headline that was full-on sensible chuckle, "Make It So-So?" (Having seen Insurrection in the theater, I stand by what I wrote.)

In the still-new dynamic My News section, we have a headline that says "Committee Nears Impeachment Vote" (see news from the day); I took another screenshot at the end of the day to capture "Panel Approves Impeachment Vote":

[Series note: In the late 1990s, I programmed the content for the AOL.com home page, which relaunched with a new design on July 14, 1998. I printed screencaps and saved them. 20 years later, I'm scanning them in and posting them with a little commentary under the tag #20YearsAgoOnAOLcom.]

20 Years Ago on AOL.com: Dec. 10, 1998 -- "You've Got Mail" Premiere and Dynamic New Headlines... Finally

December 10, 1998: We went with "You've Got Meg!" to promote the NYC premiere of You've Got Mail, the 2-hour product placement that I still haven't seen. The text promo also references Tomb Raider III downloads.

More importantly, we finally added a dynamic news headline onto the page! As I recall, the mechanism was a simple include file that pulled in the top headline from My News, automatically truncating it. I don't remember at this point if we sent people directly to the article or just to the My News main page.

Note that from here on out, you'll only see the news headline block on screenshots pofthe live page; the headline block didn't show up on the preview server.

Note that the page was still static; you wouldn't see a new headline unless you refreshed the page. (I don't remember if we had a meta-refresh on the page.) At the time I took this screenshot (10:05am ET), the top headline was "House Likely to Get Articles," referring to articles of impeachment for the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal:

[Series note: In the late 1990s, I programmed the content for the AOL.com home page, which relaunched with a new design on July 14, 1998. I printed screencaps and saved them. 20 years later, I'm scanning them in and posting them with a little commentary under the tag #20YearsAgoOnAOLcom.]

20 Years Ago on AOL.com: Dec. 9, 1998 -- Last-Minute Travel Bargains and the International Space Station

December 9, 1998: Last-minute airfare deals were typically our most clicked-on Travel promos, so we went to that well a lot. The top text promo references the building of the International Space Station, the first component of which went up in a mission on November 20 (we made no mention of it on AOL.com when it happened, probably because it was a Russian Proton launch, not the space shuttle):

[Series note: In the late 1990s, I programmed the content for the AOL.com home page, which relaunched with a new design on July 14, 1998. I printed screencaps and saved them. 20 years later, I'm scanning them in and posting them with a little commentary under the tag #20YearsAgoOnAOLcom.]

20 Years Ago on AOL.com: Dec. 8, 1998 -- Fight the Flu, and a Clinton Defense

December 8, 1998: The graphic promo features winter health tips, while the top text promo is a My News promo that reads "White House to Present Defense," calling witnesses in front of the House Judiciary Committee to argue that the Lewinsky scandal didn't feature any impeachable offenses. (Past = prologue?)  You can read the comtemporaneous Washington Post article. 

[Series note: In the late 1990s, I programmed the content for the AOL.com home page, which relaunched with a new design on July 14, 1998. I printed screencaps and saved them. 20 years later, I'm scanning them in and posting them with a little commentary under the tag #20YearsAgoOnAOLcom.]

20 Years Ago on AOL.com: Dec. 7, 1998 -- Sneaking in Employee Babies, and Garth Brooks

December 7, 1998: We didn't do anything to remember Pearl Harbor, but we did start the day with a graphic promo that read, "How Much Will This Baby Cost? Lowering the price of raising a child." I don't think it was a veiled shopping promo, but I have no idea what else it would have been.

The important thing is that the kid in the photo belongs to an AOL.com employee (Will Schermerhorn on the My News team):

We didn't use employee photos very often, but we didn't actually sneak it in; I'm sure we got a release and everything; we even gave a proper photo credit below the fold: "Photo Credit: Erica courtesy of Robin and Will Schermerhorn."

That lasted until we started into primetime, where we switched over to Garth Brooks. I guess his live album, Double Live, which had been released in November, hit the top of the Billboard charts:

[Series note: In the late 1990s, I programmed the content for the AOL.com home page, which relaunched with a new design on July 14, 1998. I printed screencaps and saved them. 20 years later, I'm scanning them in and posting them with a little commentary under the tag #20YearsAgoOnAOLcom.]

20 Years Ago on AOL.com: Dec. 6, 1998 -- Shop Smart (Shop S-Mart?)

December 6, 1998: Another generic holiday shopping promo, this one with a mild Army of Darkness reference. Plus, more shopping, and shareware. Remember shareware?

[Series note: In the late 1990s, I programmed the content for the AOL.com home page, which relaunched with a new design on July 14, 1998. I printed screencaps and saved them. 20 years later, I'm scanning them in and posting them with a little commentary under the tag #20YearsAgoOnAOLcom.]

20 Years Ago on AOL.com: Dec. 5, 1998 -- Furby Alternatives

December 5, 1998: 1998 was the year of the Furby, so we named-checked it for what I'm sure was probably just a generic holiday gift guide. The first text promo references college football and the runup to the Fiesta Bowl, while the second text promo is holiday shopping.

I also forgot to notice that back in November, we swapped out "Scores" for Holiday Shopping in the Daily Essentials Section:

[Series note: In the late 1990s, I programmed the content for the AOL.com home page, which relaunched with a new design on July 14, 1998. I printed screencaps and saved them. 20 years later, I'm scanning them in and posting them with a little commentary under the tag #20YearsAgoOnAOLcom.]

20 Years Ago on AOL.com: Dec. 4, 1998 -- Go 'Psycho'?

December 4, 1998: The 1998 remake of Psycho opened, so we featured it in the top spot. Although the image is in color, the rest of the top block is black-and-white in honor of the original.

The top text promo headline is "A Good Time, All the Time," which is of course a Spinal Tap reference.

[Series note: In the late 1990s, I programmed the content for the AOL.com home page, which relaunched with a new design on July 14, 1998. I printed screencaps and saved them. 20 years later, I'm scanning them in and posting them with a little commentary under the tag #20YearsAgoOnAOLcom.]

20 Years Ago on AOL.com: Dec. 3, 1998 -- Buddy Chat for Free

December 3, 1998: Another simulated chat window in the lead promo; "Forget 'Dime a Minute'" refers to either a Sprint or AT&T campaign that advertised calling plans at 10 cents a minute. Of course, trying to link text chat with voice calls is a like trying to compare apples to acetone, but whatever.

[Series note: In the late 1990s, I programmed the content for the AOL.com home page, which relaunched with a new design on July 14, 1998. I printed screencaps and saved them. 20 years later, I'm scanning them in and posting them with a little commentary under the tag #20YearsAgoOnAOLcom.]

20 Years Ago on AOL.com: Dec. 2, 1998 -- Spy on Your Neighbors?

December 2, 1998: We led with a generic holiday shopping promo, but look at the first text promo: It's for Hometown AOL, AOL's web page creation product, and reads "Spy on Your Neighbors: Visit people's pages in Hometown AOL."

Kind of an odd angle to take a personal web page builder, but whatever, I'm sure I had a reason.

Anyway, hat promo lasted until mid-morning, when (I think) our boss noticed and we changed it to the more benign "Go Visit Your Neighbors." 

[Series note: In the late 1990s, I programmed the content for the AOL.com home page, which relaunched with a new design on July 14, 1998. I printed screencaps and saved them. 20 years later, I'm scanning them in and posting them with a little commentary under the tag #20YearsAgoOnAOLcom.]

20 Years Ago on AOL.com: Dec. 1, 1998 -- Starting December With an Uninspiring Lineup

December 1, 1998: The graphic promo is a generic stock portfolio promo with a generic trading floor photo; the rest of the lineup is pretty bland, even though the apartment listings text promo acknowledges the first of the month. The laziest kind of timeliness.

[Series note: In the late 1990s, I programmed the content for the AOL.com home page, which relaunched with a new design on July 14, 1998. I printed screencaps and saved them. 20 years later, I'm scanning them in and posting them with a little commentary under the tag #20YearsAgoOnAOLcom.]