Thursday, December 06, 2007
Flashback: Man United Web site 1998-2002
Man United's current website is one of massive proportions both in scale and interactivity. Undoubtedly there are a team of people updating it daily and making it a destination for United fans around the world.
But the website had more humble origins as can be seen in the following screenshots. The first is from 1999 (which has a similar design as the one launched in 1998, the year that the Man United site debuted at http://www.manutd.com):
The trend in the late 1990's was to build a splash page that was short on content but was a pretty "door" to the website. The center point of the design was Old Trafford with a beautiful photograph showing three sides of the ground. After entering the site from this page, the main page was equally simple and was filled mostly with advertising. There was typically one main headline story and that was about it except for links to the other pages.
In 2002, the Man United website (pictured above) had a more modern look-and-feel although still nowhere near as good as the current one. Again the 2002 design was a splash page that users first saw before going to a main page. In fact, the current Man United web site has a splash page too but it's used for directing users to different sections of the website than for decoration.
Interestingly, the 2002 version advertises a pay-per-view game that website visitors could watch on the website for 2.50 GBP (equivalent to $5). The game was Man United against Liverpool. So even in 2002, Man United's website was ahead of the pack.
What are your memories from the old Man United website? Good or bad?
But the website had more humble origins as can be seen in the following screenshots. The first is from 1999 (which has a similar design as the one launched in 1998, the year that the Man United site debuted at http://www.manutd.com):
The trend in the late 1990's was to build a splash page that was short on content but was a pretty "door" to the website. The center point of the design was Old Trafford with a beautiful photograph showing three sides of the ground. After entering the site from this page, the main page was equally simple and was filled mostly with advertising. There was typically one main headline story and that was about it except for links to the other pages.
In 2002, the Man United website (pictured above) had a more modern look-and-feel although still nowhere near as good as the current one. Again the 2002 design was a splash page that users first saw before going to a main page. In fact, the current Man United web site has a splash page too but it's used for directing users to different sections of the website than for decoration.
Interestingly, the 2002 version advertises a pay-per-view game that website visitors could watch on the website for 2.50 GBP (equivalent to $5). The game was Man United against Liverpool. So even in 2002, Man United's website was ahead of the pack.
What are your memories from the old Man United website? Good or bad?
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My memories have always been good and with each new iteration it gets better and better.
# posted by 
: 11:05 PM
: 11:05 PM
Agreed. I really liked the old website and the new one is even better. The part I didn't like about the old one was that the background was red and the words were white and that messed with your eyes so bad went you went to a regular website. They are starting to make me mad though-why do we have to pay to hear the radiocast??? Don't they have neough money.
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# posted by : 3:51 PM
: 3:51 PM Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
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