Back in 2024 I posted photos from the dot-com boom when I worked at Blueberry, a digital agency in London that felt more like a social club than a job. We shipped work for clients like Laura Ashley, Ben & Jerry's, Ted Baker, The Times, and Boo.com, hand-coding everything in HomeSite with table layouts and single-pixel spacer GIFs before CSS support matured.

One weekend they needed a site finished and I named the price of a classic FIAT 500 — multiple thousands of pounds — and management agreed. Photos from March 2000 show my friend Morgan Gibbons at his Graphite Power Mac G4 with Quake III wallpaper, a Dreamcast Crazy Taxi magazine, translucent Apple peripherals, and bubblegum iMacs everywhere.

The open-plan floor had curved purple desks, CRT monitors, house music, and LAN Quake III sessions. A sister company, Magic Button, made headlines when an intimate email went viral, drawing reporters per The Guardian on 15 December 2000. The server room saw both Goatse shocks and network guys losing at Unreal Tournament.

By April 2001 the downturn hit and liquidators arrived; I left with two Bubblegum iMacs. Thanks to Morgan Gibbons and Anthony Hogbin for the photos and memories.