the more things change

this is too small to read (though you can click on it, which improves things).

The Washington Post has published this look back at web dominance over the past two decades, built by compiling data from comScore showing the 20 most popular websites in December of every year from 1996. The chart is a fascinating look at more than 15 years of tech giants rising, falling, and consolidating as the web evolved, and particularly so for me as we formed our company in 1996, or at least that is what I think I recall.

The chart deserves a careful look, as those faint lines can explain the confusing mess of who bought whom and why certain names vanish from the board. AOL didn't disappear—it became part of Time Warner for a while. Ask Jeeves became just Ask. CNET became part of the CBS empire.

Yahoo has been first or second every year from 1997 to 2013. I am astounded. As I am by Microsoft appearing at three in 2013.