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Look at BrokeAssStuart.com Through the Years Thanks to the Wayback MAchine

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I just learned about the Wayback Machine this morning when I read this article on Time’s Techland blog. Some fucking genius created this amazing digital time capsule that is described thusly on wikipedia:

The Wayback Machine is a digital time capsule created by the Internet Archive non-profit organization, based in San Francisco, California. It is maintained with content from Alexa Internet. The service enables users to see archived versions of web pages across time, which the Archive calls a “three dimensional index”. Internet Archive bought the domain waybackmachine.org for their own site. It is currently in its beta test.

Brilliant right? So I decided to check out the history of my very own site and see what it looked like throughout the years. Here is BrokeAssStuart.com as it’s very first incarnation:

If you click on the image you can see it better, and if you click here, I’m pretty sure you can navigate the entire site. Amazing right? Am I the last one to this party? Who cares, I still think it’s cool.

Anyway, the above pic is how the site looked from 2006 to about 2008. Back then it was pretty much just for selling zines. I think later on you could buy shirts and stickers on it too. Then in 2008 there is an in between period that the Wayback Machine can’t seem to get good stuff for, after which comes the big redesign which you see here:

I’m sure many of you remember that site. Makes you feel kinda nostalgic doesn’t it? Once again you can click the image to make it bigger. Also you can navigate the site here.

The above site launched in March of 2009, and despite a few changes, stay that way until BrokeAssStuart.com’s current incarnation which launched in July 0f 2011. As you can see it was a big departure from just a place to sell zines and shit. It became a destination for broke-asses on both coasts to get the lowdown on all things related to brokeitude.

So that’s today’s history lesson. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did. Leave links below to any cool stuff you find while doing your own Wayback Machine adventures.

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Broke-Ass Stuart - Editor In Cheap

Broke-Ass Stuart - Editor In Cheap

Stuart Schuffman, aka Broke-Ass Stuart, is a travel writer, poet, TV host, activist, and general shit-stirrer. His website BrokeAssStuart.com is one of the most influential arts & culture sites in the San Francisco Bay Area and his freelance writing has been featured in Lonely Planet, Conde Nast Traveler, The Bold Italic, Geek.com and too many other outlets to remember. His weekly column, Broke-Ass City, appears every other Thursday in the San Francisco Examiner. Stuart’s writing has been translated into four languages. In 2011 Stuart created and hosted the travel show Young, Broke, and Beautiful on IFC and in 2015 he ran for Mayor of San Francisco and got nearly 20k votes.

He's been called "an Underground legend": SF Chronicle, "an SF cult hero":SF Bay Guardian, and "the chief of cheap": Time Out New York.