Comments on: Secrets In Websites

By: Hassan Vertucci

Hassan Vertucci — Tue, 06 Dec 2011 02:33:57 +0000

I was just too lazy But thanks for pointing it out… they are all live links now.

By: laterooms london

laterooms london — Sat, 22 Jan 2011 04:30:19 +0000

You presented some very nice specifics there. I did a search on the subject and uncovered a lot of people should recognize having your blog.

By: Ex-Amazon Developer

Ex-Amazon Developer — Thu, 14 Oct 2010 21:51:49 +0000

I’m omitting my name from this comment so it won’t be public, but you now (privately) have my email address, and you can google that to find out who I am if you really want to. (But please don’t make it public.)

I was idly googling around and just found this page. I can tell you exactly and authoritatively the story behind the Amazon “MEOW”, because I’m the one who put it there.

To be honest, it’s not all that interesting. I worked as a developer at Amazon some years back, and did a lot of work on their front-end framework (known internally as “Gurupa”). Shortly before I left the company, I inserted the MEOW comment at the end of one of the Gurupa page templates, just to see how long it would last. Well, it’s been more than five years (I left in 2005) and it’s still there. It shows up not just on the home page, but also on most browse merchandising pages, such as those linked from the “shop all departments” menu in the upper left. We had just finished migrating the home page to Gurupa towards the end of my time at Amazon, and over the years, I’ve found the comment a convenient way to see that the home page is still running some of my code.

Unfortunately, there really isn’t any clever meaning to it. You guessed correctly in your blog post: I just like cats.

I found a few other references to the comment, including a discussion on StackOverflow where people were speculating on technical reasons for it: a check to see whether the entire html page has rendered, a marker related to reporting or search-and-replace, and so forth. Needless to say, none of that is correct, and I find it all very amusing.

By: Hunting down Easter Eggs: Konami codes and more | Dork Adore

Hunting down Easter Eggs: Konami codes and more | Dork Adore — Thu, 05 Aug 2010 11:01:37 +0000

[...] Robert Accettura has some incredibly geeky Easter Eggs hidden in the HTML of some huge sites. [...]

By: Secretos en páginas web « In Nomine Pixel

Secretos en páginas web « In Nomine Pixel — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 11:57:02 +0000

[...] Secrets In Websites | Secrets In Websites [...]

By: Frank

Frank — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 16:47:19 +0000

I found the Amazon one by accident about a year back – I’ve just rechecked it, decided to google it, and came up with this page. It’s good to know I’m not the only one who reads source code when bored.

By: Thursday Links Roundup #5 - Putting Blogs First

Thursday Links Roundup #5 - Putting Blogs First — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 16:13:10 +0000

[...] Secrets In Websites – Interesting and funny ‘easter eggs’ found in many, big and small, websites. [...]

By: michael

michael — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 12:12:28 +0000

I love the futurama references. Am going to have to think up some easter eggs to have in websites from now on. Will add some fun to the process of developing websites.

By: Leo

Leo — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 20:05:23 +0000

I implemented documentum solutions for several years.
As an example documentum (now EMC) provided scripts to help developers/integrators out with some complex stuff.

In one of the scripts I have found this comment (don’t remember the exact words).

“I don’t know what this line of code is about or what it does, but when you delete it the documentum server will crash completely.”

By: 14 de enero de 2008

14 de enero de 2008 — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 01:54:16 +0000

[...] Curiosos secretos en algunos de nuestros sitios favoritos (parte 2) [...]