20 Years Ago on AOL.com: Jan. 31, 1999 -- Finally, a Remarkably Ad-Free (at least online) Super Bowl XXXIII

January 31, 1999: After weeks of hype, Super Bowl Sunday finally arrived; we started the day with John Elway:

Continuing on with a "Game On!" text update when the game started:

And finally, switched to a generic pic of the Lombardi Trophy, with the score in the text headline, after the results were in.

One thing that seems kind of odd is that none of the promos hyped up the Super Bowl advertisements or the ability to watch them online. If I remember correctly, that was because you couldn't do that, at least in any organized fashion, for a year or two more. (For example, this 2007 press release hypes the 5th Annual AOL Super Sunday Poll.)

[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: Jan. 30, 1999 -- Super (Bowl) Preview and Auction Puffery

January 30, 1999: Can the Broncos repeat? Yes. (Terrell Davis photo.) Can you really get $500 designer shoes for $7? No. Forget puffery, that's an outright lie:

[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: Jan. 29, 1999 -- "She's All That" Leads Weekend Movies

January 29, 1999: Rachael Leigh Cook (still mainly known at this time as the "This Is Your Brain on Drugs" frying pan girl) led off in She's All That, with text promos for the Super Bowl preview and a big-screen TV promo for 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: Jan. 28, 1999 -- More Hometown AOL and Super Bowl XXXIII Previews

January 28, 1999: We started out the morning with the purple and gold Hometown AOL promo, along with more Super Bowl and a cooking Shopping promo that's not a MasterChef reference:

For the PM update, we moved Super Bowl XXXIII to the top, using a pic of the Falcons' Jamal Anderson:

[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: Jan. 27, 1999 -- Monica's Back

January 27, 1999: We started the day with ski vacations (and also note the Pepsi One Final Four Trip ad jackpot), Hometown AOL, and clothes shopping. Though pay attention to the dynamic My News headline, which says "GOP Set to Make Lewinsky a Witness":

After somewhat of a break in the top spot for impeachment trial coverage, for the PM update we returned to feature Monica Lewinsky, a subpoenaed witness in the proceedings:

[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: Jan. 26, 1999 -- Another Pretty Smiling Blonde Stock Photo Woman, John Elway, and the Pope

January 26, 1999: Another weight loss/healthy eating promo featuring Pretty Smiling Blonde Stock Photo Woman, another "Talk Is Cheap" AIM promo, and a video game shopping promo that name checks Lara Croft, Luke Skywalker, and Solid Snake. The My News headline captured in the snapshot is about the 1999 Colombia earthquake:

For the PM update, we featured our Super Bowl package using a photo of John Elway; the only other change is the updated My News headline, which says "Pope Compares Abortion to Slavery." The referenced pope is Pope John Paul II, whose views on abortion were very different from the current and much-beloved Pope Francis, who has compared abortion to Nazi eugenics and contract killings:

[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: Jan. 25, 1999 -- Personal Finance Up Front, Dilbert TV Cartoon in the Rear

January 25, 1999: The lead promo was a classic Personal Finance stock photo, "Hand Clutching Cash, followed by some super-obvious "Got Milk" plagiarism to hawk Hometown AOL. (The Got Milk campaign was about 6 years old by at that point. As an aside, I didn't know that the campaign's first ad, "Aaron Burr," was directed by Michael Bay.) 

For the PM update, we switched to the short-lived Dilbert animated prime time TV series.

[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: Jan. 24, 1999 -- Cameron Diaz and the Golden Globes

January 24, 1999: We had an all-day promo for the 56th Golden Globes Awards featuring Cameron Diaz, who was up for Best Supporting Actress for There's Something About Mary. (She didn't win, losing to Gwyneth Paltrow for the overachieving Shakespeare in Love).

In the other text spots, we had Super Bowl party planning and online children's clothes shopping featuring the headline, "Kids Grow Like Weeds."

[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: Jan. 23, 1999 -- Prepping for Super Bowl XXXIII

January 23, 1999: The lineup for next week's Super Bowl XXXIII was set, so we were promoting our Super Bowl package; it apparently included sports news headlines because we were able to say "Super Bowl" in an editorial manner, instead of trademark-compliant generic wordings like "The Big Game."

[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: Jan. 22, 1999 -- Gillian Anderson Opens in "Playing by Heart"

January 22, 1999: Our Friday entertainment lead was Gillian Anderson from the now-forgotten ensemble movie Playing by Heart (I haven't seen it, but it sounds like a proto-Love Actually). Her plot segment had her paired with Jon Stewart.

The other promos featured getaway travel bargains and online clothes 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: Jan. 21, 1999 -- Workout Women, Genealogy, Clinton Defense Day 3

January 21, 1999: The top spot is a Health & Fitness promo for building custom health plans. Of course, more stock photo workout women (tights this time, not sports bras). The other text promos feature online genealogy and online auctions, while the My News headline seen here is for Day 3 of the Clinton impeachment defense.

This is the only screenshot I have, which means that I either didn't do or didn't document a PM update:

[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: Jan. 20, 1999 -- Mutual Funds and Hometown AOL (along with a Music mashup)

January 20, 1999: We led off with a fairly generic Personal Finance feature on the top 25 mutual funds (which for some reason was a "mutual fund finder" instead of just a straight list), as well as text promos for AOL 4.0 and Music (pitching pop, rap, jazz, and country, because as you well know, there's a lot of overlap in those audiences so it's fine to lump them all together for the broadest maximum exposure).

The My News headline seen in the morning is still State of the Union coverage:

For the PM update,we switched to Hometown AOL (AOL's web page builder product; actually, one of them; as I recall, to match the style of homepage builders like GeoCities, Hometown AOL added a little more structure in the form of themed interest areas with shared navigation). Not sure about then, but I like the LSU-ish purple and yellow color scheme for this promo.

The My News headline captured in the PM update is about the Clinton defense in the impeachment trial:

[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: Jan. 19, 1999 -- President Clinton's State of the Union Address

January 19, 1999: The My News headline is about the White House opening the Clinton defense for his impeachment trial, but the olive drab-to-khaki-colored top spot was all about the 1999 State of the Union address (in which, strangely enough, didn't mention the trial at all).

The daytime promo was the pre-game (note the 5-line caption, which broke/extended the layout a bit), while the PM update, which went live at around 6pm, was worded generally enough with "complete coverage" to handle the pre-, during, and post-speech time periods:

[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: Jan. 18, 1999 -- MLK Jr. Remembered

January 18, 1999: Monday was the commemoration of the birthday of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.; I don't remember if we got it as a holiday or not (possibly so, which would explain why we only had one version of the page); the other promos include a video game of the year guide and toys:

[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: Jan. 17, 1999 -- NFL, AIM, DVD

January 17, 1999: Standard Sunday promo with the NFL playoffs (featuring Vinnie Testaverde for Jets vs. Broncos for the AFC Championship... the Jets lost), with text promos for AIM and DVD movies and players:

[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: Jan. 16, 1999 -- Spring Break Getaways

January 16, 1999: The depth of winter is the best time to promote planning for spring break getaways, and we used a stock photo of a beach pyramid. The text promos include a Pet Finder Decision Guide, and AOL Autos:

[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: Jan. 15, 1999 -- "Phantom Menace" Preview

January 15, 1999: Remember the Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace teaser promo photo that got everyone excited? The one with the shadow of Darth Vader looming over a young Anakin Skywalker? Focus on that, and not how you felt after you actually saw Phantom Menace.

We let this promo run all day, along with a Digital City dining out guide and online CD shopping; of course, the Clinton impeachment trial continued:

[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: Jan. 14, 1999 -- Impeachment Trial Opens, Stocks Slammed, Y2K Preparations

January 14, 1999: The main graphic promo featured Diet and Fitness and more women in sports bras to start the day, but as seen in the My News dynamic headline, the Clinton impeachment trial opened today:

The PM update featured news of a big stock sell-off, as well as the first top-block mention of Y2K, with an altogether too-obvious R.E.M. 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: Jan. 13, 1999 -- Michael Jordan Retires, Stocks Swing

January 13, 1999: We started the top spot with the news that broke the previous night that Michael Jordan was retiring... for the second time. The text promos are for Hometown AOL and CD-buying online; you can also see the My News block that references the stocks markets dropping; this foreshadowed the next few page updates (not surprisingly, we were kind of preoccupied on the state of tech stocks):

 

First, "Stocks Drop" at 11:04am: 

Then, "Stocks Swing" at 11:14am as stocks rebounded:

Finally, closing out the PM update with a recap of the day's dip and really:

[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: Jan. 12, 1999 -- Britney Spears' "...Baby One More Time" Released

January 12, 1999: Guessing that entertainment media is all over this today, but ...Baby One More Time was released 20 years ago today, so naturally we had Britney Spears up on the home page all day and all night (just doing a photo change for the PM lineup):

[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: Jan. 11, 1999 -- More Not-So Hidden Messages, Peer Pressure, Shania Twain

January 11, 1999: The lead promo reads: "You Deserve a Raise: Use the Web to find a better job;" 1999 was nearing the peak of the dotcom bubble, and for some time, it had been normal for AOLers to job-hop internally, chasing raises and more stock options.

By that time, I'd been in the same group and essentially the same job for about 2 years, which seemed charmingly retro.

The first text promo applies a little peer pressure for upgrading to AOL 4.0. 

For the PM update, we switched to Shania Twain and the American Music Awards. She won best female Country Artist, though Garth Brooks took Artist of the Year.

We also switched to an AIM promo in the top spot, though thinking back, it probably would have made more sense to promote AIM downloads during the day and AOL downloads at night, considering the work audiences. Oh well:

[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: Jan. 10, 1999 -- Vikings vs. Cards in the NFL Playoffs

January 10, 1999: Generic winter Sunday promo featuring NFL playoff action (with a Randy Moss photo), AIM, and apparel 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: Jan. 9, 1999 -- Autos and Terrible House Ads

January 9, 1999: Generic Saturday promo with new cars, downloads, and online clothes shopping.

I take this moment to direct your attention to the sampling of house ads in the bottom of the ad block; first off, in the AIM block, according to the faux editor's marking, the text should be "CLICK FREE! HERE!", while in the AOL 4.0 ad, I can't tell if the people are dancing or fighting:

[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: Jan. 8, 1999 -- That Other Trial

January 8, 1999: The Clinton impeachment trial continued, but Fridays were movie promotion days, so the top spot was for the John Travolta flick A Civil Action. In the text promos, we had a "heat-seeking" wordplay for travel and an Inspector Gadget reference.

I don't have a PM update archived, so either we didn't do one because it wasn't needed for a Friday, or I didn't capture 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: Jan. 7, 1999 -- AOL NetMail (Oh, and the Clinton Impeachment Trial Begins)

January 7, 1999: We started the Thursday with a house promo for AOL NetMail (also note the AOL Autos house ad jackpotting in the ad block) then did a PM switch to highlight the kickoff of the Clinton impeachment trial:

[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: Jan. 6, 1999 -- 106th Congress Convenes; NBA Lockout Ends

January 6, 1999: We started the day with a Personal Finance lead graphic promo, followed by text promos for AOL 4.0 and buying DVDs online. Also, as the My News promo shows, the 106th Congress convened:

Then in the PM update, we featured a photo of Michael Jordan as an agreement was reached to end the NBA lockout:

[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: Jan. 5, 1999 -- Introducing Two-a-Day Updates, Plus U.S. vs. Iraq Dogfight

January 5, 1999: The lead promo features a family skiing stock photo for a vacation travel promo, while the first text promo still targets new 'net users, and the second text promo has a pretty damn cryptic promo for online book shopping.

More importantly, with the real start of the New Year, we started doing regular two-a-day promo block updates: As before, the new day's content went live at 3AM ET:

Then, we'd push a late afternoon/early evening update to get us into primetime, usually with an Entertainment focus (like the Lauryn Hill and Grammy feature).

Also, the My News headline captured here is "U.S., Iraqi Planes in Dogfight," referencing a confrontation in the southern no-fly zone:

[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: Jan. 4, 1999 -- Buddy Chat

January 4, 1999: As I recall, Buddy Chat was a feature of AOL/AIM that allowed users to create their own private group chat rooms. Meanwhile, we continued our series of Personal Finance "Get Rich Clicks," featuring tips for saving more in '99.

[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: Jan. 3, 1999 -- New Year, New Job

January 3, 1999: The lead promo reads, "Find a better job that pays more." I'm sure this wasn't any commentary on my own position.

In the text promos, we have more Get Rich Clicks and a Ramones 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: Jan. 2, 1999 -- New Year's Fitness and More Get Rich Clicks

January 2, 1999: More New Year's fitness promos means more women in sports bras, plus picking hot stocks in 1999.

I think we gradually ramped down our references to 1999 as the novelty faded. But not yet. 

[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: Jan. 1, 1999 -- Welcome to 1999? Also, Get Rich Clicks

January 1, 1999: There's no explicit message saying "Happy New Year" anywhere on the page, and I think this was a conscious decision because of time zones. At this point (and in fact, at no point in my tenure doing the AOL.com home page), we weren't tailoring home page content for US time zones—the new day's content published at 3am ET, and everyone say the same content. If we tried to follow the ball drop in real-time, depending on where you saw the page, it would either be early or late and would look silly for folks outside of Eastern Standard Time. (Just because we were soaking in east coast media elitism didn't mean we weren't aware of basic geography.)

The lead promo (thoughtfully annotated—because you cant' see dark blue "clicked link" text on a black background—by whoever was apparently helping me by taking the screenshot and presumably authoring the promo, leading me to reconsider whether I actually did take this time off) says, "Find the best mutual funds for 1999."

The text promos reference Rose Bowl and Sugar Bowl action, as well as CD-buying online:

[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.]