Automatic for the People

January 1, 2025 4:57 PM

Cloudhiker was created to bring back the nostalgic thrill of the classic Web 2.0 exploration era. You'll encounter completely random websites. If possible, the website will be shown directly to you, allowing you to dive in and engage with it firsthand. Here, you won't come across clickbait from Buzzfeed or lackluster blog articles; instead, you'll discover sites that are genuinely captivating, unconventional, mind-blowing, or geared towards learning. Some will tickle your funny bone, some will stimulate your thoughts, and others may prove invaluable for your work with their exceptional tools.
posted by chavenet (11 comments total)

The very first thing it served up to me was the Bird Migration Explorer which is incredible!
posted by moonmilk at 6:04 PM on January 1 [2 favorites]

Neat. :)
posted by AlSweigart at 6:14 PM on January 1 [2 favorites]

bring back the nostalgic thrill of the classic Web 2.0

The very first link I got was to the racist, homophobic, Nazi-infested meme platform YTMND.

I think that's enough nostalgia for me today.
posted by Umami Dearest at 6:59 PM on January 1 [1 favorite]

Oh what was the site that was just like this back in the day? I want to say "tumblr" but that's obviously tumblr, the blog platform. It had the vibe of "tumbling through the web" though. It was a sort of social network, but almost had a similar interface to this (that strip on top, though I think it had a green button).
posted by symbioid at 7:17 PM on January 1 [2 favorites]

Oh what was the site that was just like this back in the day?
Perhaps it was "stumbleupon"?
posted by Calvin and the Duplicators at 7:31 PM on January 1 [8 favorites]

On my first try, it served up a little farm with baby goats! (But then the farm boiled the head of a cow, and I was traumatized beyond all imagining.)
posted by mittens at 7:47 PM on January 1 [3 favorites]

This is nice, but if I find a site that I like, I can't return to it using the back button. Sites are not stored in the browser history (Firefox); in my history only the Cloudhiker site shows up.
posted by Termite at 7:58 PM on January 1 [1 favorite]

I like it. Reminds me a bit of https://webroll.io/
posted by jognito at 10:40 PM on January 1 [1 favorite]

My #1 was The Prolific 98 Year Old Toy Inventor Who Designed 800 of the World’s Most Iconic Toys and Games

"Filmmaker Lyn Goldfarb has made “Eddy’s World”, a short film about her 98 year old father Eddy. Eddy Goldfarb is known as one of the most prolific toymakers and designed such iconic designs as “Yakity Yak Wind Up Teeth”, “Battling Tops”, “KerPlunk”, and “Chutes Away” just to name a few."

Yakity Yak Wind Up Teeth, awww yeah! "The film has since become part of the New Yorker documentary series."
posted by taz at 11:48 PM on January 1 [1 favorite]

(Termite, if you are getting the same thing I am, you can click the link just under Next Website, and you will get a Visit the Website description and link.)
posted by taz at 11:51 PM on January 1 [2 favorites]

Definitely Stumbleupon. I miss that site so much. A great place to bookmark your sites and find all kinds of newness just by clicking a button. Made friends there in the oughts who migrated, as I did, to Tumblr when SU™'s management finally got just too insanely annoying and unresponsive and cackhanded. Like, how do you run a social media site that doesn't have real messaging to be, you know, social?
At any rate, this is fun. Thanks for the Cloudhiker link.
posted by the sobsister at 8:40 PM on January 2 [1 favorite]