The Useless Web was an example of early

web Web most often refers to: * Spider web, a silken structure created by the animal * World Wide Web or the Web, an Internet-based hypertext system Web, WEB, or the Web may also refer to: Computing * WEB, a literate programming system created by ...

humor Humour ( Commonwealth English) or humor (American English) is the tendency of experiences to provoke laughter and provide amusement. The term derives from the humoral medicine of the ancient Greeks, which taught that the balance of fluids i ...

Criteria

It was a list of links to web pages the writers deemed egregiously useless, with humorous descriptions. In time it grew to a directory with links archived by category. It helped disseminate many early minor

internet meme An Internet meme, or meme (, Help:Pronunciation respelling key, ''MEEM''), is a cultural item (such as an idea, behavior, or style) that spreads across the Internet, primarily through Social media, social media platforms. Internet memes manif ...

s and phenomenon. There were many imitators, and it spawned its own

Yahoo Yahoo (, styled yahoo''!'' in its logo) is an American web portal that provides the search engine Yahoo Search and related services including My Yahoo, Yahoo Mail, Yahoo News, Yahoo Finance, Yahoo Sports, y!entertainment, yahoo!life, an ...

category.

Marc Andreessen Marc Lowell Andreessen ( ; born July 9, 1971) is an American businessman and former software engineer. He is the co-author of Mosaic, the first widely used web browser with a graphical user interface; co-founder of Netscape; and co-founder and ...

once called it "One of the best sites on the Web".

Origins

The site was founded by Paul Phillips in 1994. Steve Berlin took over in 1995 and started to update more regularly. In 1999 John Gephart IV took over and continued to update the site until early 2001.

Reception

The Useless Web received media coverage in ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...

'' and ''

Wired Wired may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Music * ''Wired'' (Jeff Beck album), 1976 * ''Wired'' (Hugh Cornwell album), 1993 * ''Wired'' (Mallory Knox album), 2017 * "Wired", a song by Prism from their album '' Beat Street'' * "Wired ...

'' magazine.

Similar websites

A similar website, The Useless Web, was launched in 2012. Another related site, Weird Websites, was launched in 2024. With curates a collection of strange, quirky, and pointless web pages, continuing the tradition of showcasing internet oddities.

References

External links