Ancient website from 1999: By Mark Zuckerberg aged 15¾
I will put you on The Web and link you ... bitch
5 ways to prepare your advertising infrastructure for disaster
A website that might just have been created by a 15-year-old Mark Zuckerberg way back in 1999 has been uncovered by Hacker News.
If the Angelfire site set up by a New York-based teen carrying the handle mez51 does indeed belong to the flame-haired Facebook CEO, then it offers early insights into his concept of stalking people online.
Under a section called "The Web", mez51 has this to say:
As of now, the web is pretty small. Hopefully, it will grow into a larger web. This is one of the few applets that require your participation to work well.
If your name is already on The Web because someone else has chosen to be linked to you, then you may choose two additional people to be linked with.
Otherwise, if you see someone who you know and would like to be linked with but your name is not already on The Web, then you can contact me and I will link that person to you and put you on The Web.
If you do not know anyone on The Web, contact me anyway and I will put you on it. In order for this applet to work, you must E-Mail me your name and the names of the two people that you would like to be linked with. Thank you!
Sounds a lot like the genesis of Facebook to us.
As for the 15-year-old's "mez51" handle, there are some hints that the identity of this kid is indeed Zuck. His initials, for example, are 'M' for Mark, 'E' for Elliot and 'Z' for Zuckerberg. The source code also reveals that the author is someone going by the name of Mark Zuckerberg.
Who lives on a site like this?
Finally and perhaps most tellingly the account holder of the email address used on the site - Themarke51@aol.com - is listed as one "ekzooks", as first noted by Motherboard.
That's the handle used all over the web by one Ed Zuckerberg - the billionaire's dad.
Tapping the email address into AOL and hitting 'forgotten password' reveals account holder details
Elsewhere on the poorly designed Angelfire site, mez51 jokes that his name is "Slim Shady" and explains that he lives in a small town near New York City. He continues:
I am currently 15 years old and I just finished freshman year in high school. I have remodeled this website in an attempt that perhaps some search engine will recognise it. I am trying to promote my new AOL Program, The Vader Fader, which you can download elsewhere on this site.
It is a decent fader. If you have any comments about this website, the java applets on it, or the Vader Fader which I am trying to promote, please contact me. My E-Mail address is at the bottom of this page.
The site also reveals how an apparently teenage Zuckerberg unashamedly considered himself to have "the best web presence" in 1999. And, he reckoned the best saying of that year was "Suck It!".
Naturally, The Register asked Facebook if this was the Real Slim Shady Zuckerberg. But the free content ad network hadn't got back to us at time of writing. ®
