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Darwinism...
The hairy Mammoth, the Dodo, Tyrannasaurus Rex... Boo, Stepstone, and E-Toys.
There's a great argument to suggest that usability is the Darwinism of the online world. Great academic debates rage in the various seats of learning, the Dinosaurs refuse to evolve and die out in a sudden implosion and those who change over time survive to become stronger.
Just as we can visit a museum and look at a graphic depiction of the ascent of man from beast, we can now compare the former incarnations of the most successful and most obvious failures in the dot com industry.
An online library of past sites has been established at Archive.org this site features an online time machine called "the wayback machine" all you do is type in a url and you can chose a date from which to look at a site.
A brief glance at the BBC site shows it evolving from a dark information page with just 2 links in December 1996 to the comprehensive portal it has now become.
In comparison Amazon simply added to its services, it's basic design didn't change very much at all. Why? well Amazon took usability and simple design into account from day one.
There is no doubt in my mind that had the BBC not persevered with their site to improve its basic features and given it the backing of one of the world's biggest media organisations it would have gone the way of the Dodo... or the Boo.
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