#20YearsAgoOnAOLcom: Nov. 30, 1999 -- Find a New Job; Find Good Looks

November 30, 1999: We closed out November with a Help Wanted sign for Find a New Job:

For the PM update, we went with more holiday fashions, gifts, and shopping product search:

[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.]

#20YearsAgoOnAOLcom: Nov. 29, 1999 -- Invest for Y2K; Win a Cruise

November 29, 1999: Were we really telling people to stockpile gold for Y2K? Hardly. We wouldn't lean in to Y2K scaremonger until December:

For the PM update, we went once again to the AOL Search Caribbean Cruise sweepstakes:

[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.]

#20YearsAgoOnAOLcom: Nov. 28, 1999 -- Sports Roundup

November 28, 1999: For another Sunday sports roundup, we featured a photo of the Redskins' Stephen Davis. Also, hard to believe in the current era, but in 1999, the team went 10-6.

Also in 2019, Happy Thanksgiving!

[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.]

#20YearsAgoOnAOLcom: Nov. 27, 1999 -- Chic Savings

November 27, 1999: For the Saturday after Thanskgiving, we were featuring little black dresses for holiday parties, gifts for the busy exec, and the ever-popular Product Search:

[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.]

#20YearsAgoOnAOLcom: Nov. 26, 1999 -- Black Friday Shopping

November 26, 1999: For Black Friday (though we didn't use the term in the top promo), we went with a Shopping promo, with fashion, gifts, and shopping search:

[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.]

#20YearsAgoOnAOLcom: Nov. 25, 1999 -- Holiday Fun, "Toy Story 2"

November 25, 1999: For Thanksgiving Day, we went with a Toy Story 2 gallery, e-cards (remember when those were a thing?), and online chats:

[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.]

#20YearsAgoOnAOLcom: Nov. 24, 1999 -- Holiday Travel; Drive Safely

November 24, 1999: For the day before Thanksgiving, we continued to focus on holiday driving help:

For the PM update, we kept the same lineup (maps, traffic, weather):

[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.]

#20YearsAgoOnAOLcom: Nov. 23, 1999 -- AOL Mail on the Road; Driving Directions

November 23, 1999: On the Tuesday before Thanksgiving, we had an AOL Mail (on the web) promo for all the folks who'd be visiting family members without AOL, of which there were still a few in 1999. (Also, it's a straight scan of a crooked printout):

For the PM update, we went with Maps & Directions, powered by MapQuest; I don't remember if Maps had built in congestion and traffic alerts by then, though if they did, they weren't realtime:

[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.]

#20YearsAgoOnAOLcom: Nov. 22, 1999 -- Beat the Bank; AOL Mail; Thanksgiving Preview

November 22, 1999: More bottomless page previews, featuring fat stacks for Personal Finance:

Then an update for AOL Mail (getting ready for holiday travel):

Then, holiday cooking tips for Thanksgiving (coming up in three 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.]

#20YearsAgoOnAOLcom: Nov. 21, 1999 -- Sports Roundup With Drew Bledsoe

November 21, 1999: Another Sunday sports roundup, featuring the greatest Patriots quarterback of all time (up to that point) Drew Bledsoe.

[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.]

#20YearsAgoOnAOLcom: Nov. 20, 1999 -- Praying for the End of "End of Days"

November 20, 1999: For Saturday, we went with yet another damn End of Days 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.]

#20YearsAgoOnAOLcom: Nov. 19, 1999 -- "The World Is Not Enough"; Eyeless Face = Love

November 19, 1999: The third Pierce Brosnan James Bond movie, The World Is Not Enough (the forgettable one with Denise Richards as nuclear physicist Christmas Jones) opened wide in the US; you can also see in the right column a promo, "Turn Clicks into Cash," for something called the AOL Affiliate Network:

For the PM update (and for most of the rest of this month, apparently), we just have a preview of the top promo block -- in this case, an anonymous, eyeless kissy face for online personals:

[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.]

#20YearsAgoOnAOLcom: Nov. 18, 1999 -- Free Web Chat; AOL Brasil; Fake AOL Mail; Aggie Bonfire Collapse; "End of Days" Again

November 18, 1999: We started the day with an unremarkable AIM 3.0 Web Chat promo, though if you look down in the Corporate links section, you can see that America Online Brasil Launches (apparently, Michael Douglas was part of the launch festivities, doing an AOL Live event from Sao Paolo). I think this was the actual, localized client, other press releases show the AOL Brasil website opened back in June:

For the PM update, we have something odd: An AOL Mail promo with what looks like a functional login screen, but what I think is actually a fake functionality image. (I think I've ranted about this before, but I recall being in a marketing/ad sales presentation where they were touting the clickthrough benefits of ads featuring "faux" functionality. Yes, let's trick our users, annoy them, and train them not to trust web entry fields. No downside to that, no sir.)

The My AOL.COM news headline also references a Texas A&M bonfire construction accident that killed (ultimately) 12:

For the PM update, we went again with a preview of End of 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.]

#20YearsAgoOnAOLcom: Nov. 17, 1999 -- Dream Homes

November 17, 1999: For Wednesday, we went with a generic Real Estate homebuying promo. That's about it; I don't know why there isn't a PM update. So here's some additional content: I didn't notice at the time, but in September, we changed the search branding from the old AOL Netfind to AOL.COM Search:

[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.]

#20YearsAgoOnAOLcom: Nov. 16, 1999 -- You've Got AOL Mail (Out-of-Client View); Holiday Travel; Win a Cruise

November 16, 1999: We started the day with an AOL Mail promo, though you can see my handwritten note at the top that says, "Out of Client View, 11/15/99 PM to _____".

My AOL product chronology is pretty hazy (the emails archived in my old AOL client Personal Filing Cabinet were lost years ago), so I don't remember if AOL Mail at this point still had ActiveX control or if we'd switched to the HTML interface.

However, marking this with "Out of Client" probably means that we'd started segmenting visitors to www.aol.com by client type: In-Client, for anyone using any sort of AOL client, and Out-of-Client, for every other web user using Netscape or Internet Explorer. At a certain point, the OOC view would turn into a huge "Join AOL" ad, with a tiny promo space (which is what the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine would pick up), but not for a while longer.

Oh, and I almost missed this -- either today or around this time, we moved away from the My News branding to My AOL.COM -- I guess it was part of a bigger web customization play?

For the PM update, we went with another Holiday Travel promo:

Then, we went with a third promo for an AOL.com Search sweepstakes, featuring a Caribbean cruise prize:

[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.]

#20YearsAgoOnAOLcom: Nov. 15, 1999 -- Keep More Cash (by not paying to see Schwarzenegger's "End of Days")

November 15, 1999: Starting out the work week, we went with a Personal Finance promo, only in a shockingly unexpected color scheme (red, not green):

For the PM update, we went with the Arnold Schwarzenegger film End of Days, where he battles Satan. You have to remember: This was 1999, and pre-millennial tension was a thing. (As opposed to the current post-millennial tension currently being felt. OK, boomer.):

[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.]

#20YearsAgoOnAOLcom: Nov. 14, 1999 -- Sports Sunday with Marshall Faulk

November 14, 1999: Another Sunday, another sports roundup, this one with Marshall Faulk of the Rams (St. Louis version):

[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.]

#20YearsAgoOnAOLcom: Nov. 13, 1999 -- Celine vs. Mariah

November 13, 1999: Celine Dion's greatest hits album was apparently, officially released on Friday, so we featured it again, even though we'd done the web premiere earlier in the week:

We did a relatively rare Saturday switch, flipping over to more new music with Mariah Carey and Fiona Apple:

[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.]

#20YearsAgoOnAOLcom: Nov. 12, 1999 -- Pokémon All Day and Night

November 12, 1999: Once again, we went with Pokémon, though this promo was different from its predecessors in two distinct ways: One, we featured the human Ash, which I don't think we'd done before; the other is that we finally started putting the accent in "Pokémon":

For the PM update, we stayed with Pokémon. Also, in the My News headline, we see another earthquake in Turkey:

[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.]

#20YearsAgoOnAOLcom: Nov. 11, 1999 -- Build a Nest Egg; Find Love

November 11, 1999: We didn't do a Veterans Day lead feature (you could do that pre-9/11), though you'll see a headline in the PM block. Instead, for the AM, we looked forward to retirement with a 401k calculator and retirement planning:

For the PM update, we went back to kissy-face stock photo white couple #2; the My News headline covers President Clinton and Veterans Day:

[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.]

#20YearsAgoOnAOLcom: Nov. 10, 1999 -- Celine Dion & Frank Sinatra

November 10, 1999: We spent the entire day with the web premiere of Celine Dion's greatest hits album, All the Way... A Decade of Song, which included a virtual duet with Frank Sinatra:

For the PM update, we stayed with Celine and a new photo:

[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.]

#20YearsAgoOnAOLcom: Nov. 9, 1999 -- Free Web Chat; Your Family Tree

November 9, 1999: We went with AIM 3.0 and Free Web Chat. Not much more to say. In the My News headlines, we see that the EgyptAir flight recorder was found:

For the PM update, we went with a retro genealogy photo:

[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.]

#20YearsAgoOnAOLcom: Nov. 8, 1999 -- Stop Losing Cash; Plan Travel Now

November 8, 1999: We started off Monday with cash raining from the sky; while "Stop Losing Cash" is a good, anxiety-inducing headline, though I'm not sure exactly what it means:

For the PM update, we went back to travel bargains, with yet another blue plane:

[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.]

#20YearsAgoOnAOLcom: Nov. 7, 1999 -- Sports Roundup (Who's that QB?)

November 7, 1999: Another Sunday, another football promo. I have to admit my knowledge of 1999 quarterbacks is lacking -- can anyone tell me who it is?

[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.]

#20YearsAgoOnAOLcom: Nov. 6, 1999 -- Saturday Love

November 6, 1999: For Saturday, we went with more stock photo kissy face:

[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.]

#20YearsAgoOnAOLcom: Nov. 5, 1999 -- Weekend Fun With a Different "Bachelor"; Download Lara Croft

November 5, 1999: We headed into the weekend with The Bachelor--a movie, not related to any reality TV show--featuring a post-Batman & Robin, pre-NCIS Chris O'Donnell:

For the PM update, we went once again to the Lara Croft 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.]

#20YearsAgoOnAOLcom: Nov. 4, 1999 -- Buy a New Home; Easy Shopping

November 4, 1999: Thursday started with homebuying, though the My News headline references a roaming gunman who put Seattle on edge:

For the PM update, we went with a super-generic shopping promo, with one notable item: I'm not sure what a Y2K Catalog was, though I think it was more along the lines Year 2000 novelty sunglasses and not survivalist gear:

[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.]

#20YearsAgoOnAOLcom: Nov. 3, 1999 -- Airfare Sale Ends Today; Pokemon and Pikachu

November 3, 1999: So we don't have the full context of the page, but apparently yesterday's Xerox murders didn't even rate a top promo treatment. Instead, we went back to airfare sales (the first travel promo since the EgyptAir crash a few days before):
For the PM update, we kept the red color scheme and went again with Pokemon (we didn't bother with any accent marks); of the Pokemon promos we'd done (and there weren't that many), I don't think we used any Pokemon other than Pikachu:

[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.]

#20YearsAgoOnAOLcom: Nov. 2, 1999 -- Pick Stocks; New Music; Xerox Shooting

November 2 1999: For the morning lineup, we went green for picking stocks, finding top mutual funds, and tracking the stock market. (Remember, we were inside a still-expanding bubble and had just announced a 2-for-1 stock split, so the market was on all our minds.)

For the PM update, we went with new music, leading with Mariah Carey and the release of Rainbow; we also referenced Jewel clips and photos. In the My News headlines, we also referenced a mass shooting at a Xerox Corporation building in Hawaii:

It was also Election Day, though it was an off-year one so it wasn't a big deal.

[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.]