Flashback Friday: When E-Commerce Was an Anomaly and MySpace Ruled

A little blurry? Of course it is. This is what Danna Bananas looked like online in 2006. High definition, it was not. (Wink!)

Happy Flashback Friday!

We’re taking a trip back to 2006. When you look at the technology we used to run a business back then, it feels like a different lifetime.

If you wanted to open an online store, people still treated it as a risky new idea. In fact, Statistics Canada reported that only 6% of Canadian firms sold goods online in 2005.

An online-only gift shop really was an anomaly.

As a woman and a budding entrepreneur, I had no idea what I was doing. I just plunged forward! (If you’ve never heard the full Our Roots story, that’s a whole other Flashback Friday.)

The Tech Stack: Flip Phones vs. Smartphones

In the early days, Danna Bananas ran on Drupal. Our setup was basic and had no frills. By today’s standards, it was like comparing an old-school flip phone with a smartphone. It did the job, but we didn’t have apps or automatic emails for this, that and everything else.

A little while later, a teenager I was working with told me about a new open-source e-commerce platform.

“What’s it called?” I asked.

“Magento,” he said.

Magento launched in 2008 and was powerful, with all the bells and whistles. The problem was that it was so new that not many developers knew how to work with it. When something broke or a security patch was needed, finding someone who could actually fix it was incredibly difficult.

Still, Drupal and then Magento carried Danna Bananas for years, right up until we moved to Shopify in 2021.

And here’s something I didn’t know then: Shopify also launched in 2006. Funny how things work out.

To Get Found, You Had to Be Listed

Here’s the part that really shows how far things have come: SEO existed in 2006, but it looked very different.

To be found, you wanted your website submitted to and listed in web directories such as DMOZ and the Yahoo Directory. Actual human editors reviewed your site before approving it. It was closer to being accepted into a club.

Reciprocal link exchanges were also a real strategy. You would email another site owner and essentially say, “I’ll link to you if you link to me.”

It sounds a little odd now, but at the time, it was one of the few ways a small store like Danna Bananas could build any kind of online authority.

Being an “Anomaly” at the Gift Market

We said “e-commerce” a lot back then.

I remember attending the Toronto Gift Show and asking vendors for high-resolution images for the website. They would look at me, confused, and ask, “Why?”

Being an online-only business without a brick-and-mortar store was an anomaly. We were pioneers in a world that still trusted physical storefronts above all else.

Social Media: Before the Algorithm Took Over

And let’s talk about social media!

Remember MySpace? It was the place to be. Your “Top 8” friends list was serious business because choosing who made the cut was basically a diplomatic minefield.

Meanwhile, Facebook was still growing. On September 26, 2006, it opened registration to anyone with a valid email address. There was no separate business signup. You had to create a personal account before you could start a Page or group for a business. I joined in 2007 and eventually started a group called Danna Bananas Is The Place To Shop.

My first post in that group was on December 18, 2009:

’Twas the week before Christmas, and all through the house...
Not a creature was stirring, ’cept the click of a mouse.
Danna Bananas online offered gifts with great flair,
And the promise the postman would deliver with care.

Then, on March 18, 2010, I posted this gem: The Incredible Expanding Bunny, under the category Nutty Novelty Gifts.

Like, whoa! If you like messing with your head, or just everybody else’s, without any sort of chemical intervention, you can freak yourself and others out, legally and cheaply, with the Amazing Expanding Bunny.

 

Guess what? The great part about Facebook back then was that your posts weren’t on a conveyor belt. People actually saw them, even when they came from a business!

This was long before social media became so monetized and algorithms decided what you could see.

Twitter: The First Platform

Twitter was born in 2006, and it was actually the first platform I ever posted on.

Back then, the internet was more experimental and, honestly, a lot more fun.

Meanwhile, in Canada

The 2006 JUNO Awards were held in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Michael Bublé was Artist of the Year, Nickelback was Group of the Year and Arcade Fire was Songwriter of the Year. Kathleen Edwards was among the songwriter nominees. Her song “Buffalo” came a couple of years later, but it’s a great one. It’s about a late-night border crossing from New York to Ontario during a fierce winter storm. It feels rather apropos to listen to in this day and age. (Wink!)

Bryan Adams was inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame, while Bruce Cockburn received the first Humanitarian Award.

Later that year, Billy Talent released Billy Talent II.

Nelly Furtado was singing “Promiscuous,” Canadians were watching Corner Gas and The Devil Wears Prada was in theatres.

That last one feels especially timely. I just went to see The Devil Wears Prada 2, and there were only three people in the theatre.

The original was released in 2006. Meryl Streep was 56 when she was offered the role of Miranda Priestly. She has since said that she turned down the first offer, asked for double the money and the studio immediately agreed.

It had taken her until 56 to realize she could do that. Good for her!

What about you? Do you remember the struggle of early e-commerce? Or maybe you still miss your MySpace Top 8?