+- TV Live Forum (https://www.tvliveforum.com)
+-- Forum: TV Live Forum (https://www.tvliveforum.com/forumdisplay.php?fid=4)
+--- Forum: Presentation (https://www.tvliveforum.com/forumdisplay.php?fid=5)
+--- Thread: Website Addresses on UK TV ads (90s/00s) (/showthread.php?tid=224)
Website Addresses on UK TV ads (90s/00s) - DeMarkay - 22-04-2021
I've always wondered why website addresses for a channel or brand would be in the top right hand corner in adverts.
Was there a particular reason for this?
For example, for Dreams beds it would be "dreams.co.uk"
Website Addresses on UK TV ads (90s/00s) - Neil Jones - 22-04-2021
No reason AFAIK for them to be there, much like "small print" just has to legible, doesn't have to be at the bottom, even though it quite often is.
The cynical argument could be to avoid channel DOGs on those channels that don't remove them during ad breaks.
And of course News 24 spawned one top right as well, pity they didn't find something for bottom right for a full house.
Could you imagine this as an onscreen URL?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dM_ruBwYGtg
Website Addresses on UK TV ads (90s/00s) - LoganStuff - 22-04-2021
Presumably it's because the internet was growing at a very rapid rate during the late 90s/early 00s, and so every company with a website desperately wanted you to know what their website was so you could go and browse what they had on there.
Website Addresses on UK TV ads (90s/00s) - Neil Jones - 22-04-2021
LoganStuff post_id=8564 time=1619130820 user_id=1524 Wrote:Presumably it's because the internet was growing at a very rapid rate during the early 90s/late 00s, and so every company with a website desperately wanted you to know what their website was so you could go and browse what they had on there.
The internet (or access to it) as we know it today took off from 1998 onwards. Freeserve came along. The previous model was pay AOL or Compuserve a subscription AND the cost of the call. Freeserve did away with that and you got the benefit of the kitchen sink for the cost of the call - internet, web space and as many ISP email addresses as you liked (though it was more preferable to have fred@hotmail.com as opposed to fred@wilkins.freeserve.co.uk for example).
And of course technically the internet has been around since the 1960s, albeit on a smaller scale and it came to fruition in the 1970s and 1980s.
Website Addresses on UK TV ads (90s/00s) - swaggyboi128 - 22-04-2021
LoganStuff post_id=8564 time=1619130820 user_id=1524 Wrote:Presumably it's because the internet was growing at a very rapid rate during the early 90s/late 00s, and so every company with a website desperately wanted you to know what their website was so you could go and browse what they had on there.Exactly, even on idents! I actually try to see how many regional URL's redirect to ITV's website (seems like ITV forgot about them and didn't link them to the regional news pages like they have in a few cases)
Website Addresses on UK TV ads (90s/00s) - Neil Jones - 22-04-2021
swaggyboi128 post_id=8566 time=1619131972 user_id=1485 Wrote:LoganStuff post_id=8564 time=1619130820 user_id=1524 Wrote:Presumably it's because the internet was growing at a very rapid rate during the early 90s/late 00s, and so every company with a website desperately wanted you to know what their website was so you could go and browse what they had on there.Exactly, even on idents! I actually try to see how many regional URL's redirect to ITV's website (seems like ITV forgot about them and didn't link them to the regional news pages like they have in a few cases)
I believe it was a deliberate decision to let a large chunk of them lapse.
Website Addresses on UK TV ads (90s/00s) - johnnyboy - 23-04-2021
I remember being shown the Internet for the very first time in 1994 (I was 21) and wondering what all the fuss was about.
I got a BT Cellnet Trium Geo-@ phone in 2000 when the company's slogan was "Surf the net...surf the BT Cellnet" and I was very much underwhelmed by the WAP experience.
I finally succumbed to pressure from my then other half to get broadband in 2001 - I was 27.
I am now 47 and I can't believe that I have still lived more than half my life without access to the Internet. I struggle to remember what life was like before it.
URLs on ads seemed to start proliferating around 1996 onwards. I have a vague recollection of adverts for "B2" and "egg" - both financial brands of the time - and I remember thinking it strange that they used their website address as the primary call to action.
As the decade drew to a close and the "dot.com bubble" grew in size, there was a real rush for companies to get onto the "information superhighway" to both take advantage of the new route to market and to demonstrate their forward-thinking nature.
Website Addresses on UK TV ads (90s/00s) - Inspector Sands - 23-04-2021
Mention should be made of G-Wizz, Granada's short-lived ISP. As you can see here it was also where its websites were hosted, hence the address on LWTs ident here being www.g-wizz.net/lwt
https://youtu.be/MZOmiIcSBMQ
Website Addresses on UK TV ads (90s/00s) - AaronLancs - 23-04-2021
Neil Jones post_id=8561 time=1619129912 user_id=961 Wrote:No reason AFAIK for them to be there, much like "small print" just has to legible, doesn't have to be at the bottom, even though it quite often is.
The cynical argument could be to avoid channel DOGs on those channels that don't remove them during ad breaks.
And of course News 24 spawned one top right as well, pity they didn't find something for bottom right for a full house.
Could you imagine this as an onscreen URL?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dM_ruBwYGtg
From doing a bit of jiggery pokery on the internet wayback machine this is the best I can get for this address (with and without Wayback Machine toolbar):
![[Image: 01-With-Tab.png]](https://i.ibb.co/GWSZc2W/01-With-Tab.png)
![[Image: 02-Without-Tab.png]](https://i.ibb.co/SvPQY16/02-Without-Tab.png)
How far have we come since 1996.
EDIT:
By the way, both links when clicked are dead. I have tried to tinker around and "explore" the "site" but still. This is all we have of that early BBC Website in all its glory.
Website Addresses on UK TV ads (90s/00s) - Neil Jones - 23-04-2021
The links don't work because the archive's followed the links to a 1999 copy, and by that point IIRC the whole bbcnc.org.uk thing has been dropped in favour of bbc.co.uk (there is a screenshot of bbcnc.org.uk from 1994 on the Wikipedia page for BBC Online) - they'd had bbc.co.uk for a while but the networking club (that's what the nc stood for, think Facebook of its time) came first.
https://web.archive.org/web/19961221203254/http://bbc.co.uk/ will show you the same page as that you've found for bbcnc.org.uk which does redirect to working pages, albeit 1997 date stamp but of course at that time it wouldn't have been a priority to have what we have now, but more of a "this is the BBC and this is what we do" sort of presence.
Website Addresses on UK TV ads (90s/00s) - johnnyboy - 23-04-2021
Neil Jones post_id=8595 time=1619166795 user_id=961 Wrote:The links don't work because the archive's followed the links to a 1999 copy, and by that point IIRC the whole bbcnc.org.uk thing has been dropped in favour of bbc.co.uk (there is a screenshot of bbcnc.org.uk from 1994 on the Wikipedia page for BBC Online) - they'd had bbc.co.uk for a while but the networking club (that's what the nc stood for, think Facebook of its time) came first.
https://web.archive.org/web/19961221203254/http://bbc.co.uk/ will show you the same page as that you've found for bbcnc.org.uk which does redirect to working pages, albeit 1997 date stamp but of course at that time it wouldn't have been a priority to have what we have now, but more of a "this is the BBC and this is what we do" sort of presence.
Very interesting, Neil.
Just been having a poke around and found the home page from BBC World in Japan.
Sorry - off topic.
Website Addresses on UK TV ads (90s/00s) - Neil Jones - 23-04-2021
One of the things to remember about the Wayback machine/Internet Archive is that its limited in terms of what the websites looked like at that point in time and its connections to other pages/websites - they'll have been mapped to the closest available date. regular crawls wouldn't have been a thing for years. Today you can post on a web forum and that will be in Google within the hour. In the mid to late 1990s? Lucky if content changes appeared at all in the archive.
Website Addresses on UK TV ads (90s/00s) - Cassia Tuna - 23-04-2021
Who remembers Granada TV's failed internet venture G-wizz.net?
![[Image: get_flash.gif]](https://web.archive.org/web/20010301085312im_/http://www.g-wizz.net/img_home/get_flash.gif)
Website Addresses on UK TV ads (90s/00s) - Rob - 23-04-2021
Cassia Tuna post_id=8634 time=1619182674 user_id=1506 Wrote:Who remembers Granada TV's failed internet venture G-wizz.net?
Look five posts up...
Website Addresses on UK TV ads (90s/00s) - LoganStuff - 23-04-2021
Neil Jones post_id=8565 time=1619131629 user_id=961 Wrote:Apologies, I was tired when I wrote that. I meant late 90s/early 00s!LoganStuff post_id=8564 time=1619130820 user_id=1524 Wrote:Presumably it's because the internet was growing at a very rapid rate during the early 90s/late 00s, and so every company with a website desperately wanted you to know what their website was so you could go and browse what they had on there.
The internet (or access to it) as we know it today took off from 1998 onwards. Freeserve came along. The previous model was pay AOL or Compuserve a subscription AND the cost of the call. Freeserve did away with that and you got the benefit of the kitchen sink for the cost of the call - internet, web space and as many ISP email addresses as you liked (though it was more preferable to have fred@hotmail.com as opposed to fred@wilkins.freeserve.co.uk for example).
And of course technically the internet has been around since the 1960s, albeit on a smaller scale and it came to fruition in the 1970s and 1980s.
Thanks for the mini history lesson though.