I'm not sure if you remember, but site rings were what you used instead of Google. They were useful.

And I've seen some guest books with lots of people at some point in my childhood, but about half a year after that everybody firmly chose in favor of hierarchical boards.

And I don't share that hate for , it served the purpose of showing you a long line in a small space, implicitly saying that it's secondary temporary information, a bit like on TV.

And what's wrong with animated GIFs, animation is nice.