2Advanced Studios v2 flash website in 2001

CSS1 was insufficient to do layout (just element-level formatting), and wasn't even fully supported by any browser until mid-2000. Netscape still had ~15% marketshare in early 2001, when Bleeding Edge takes place, and neither it nor Internet Explorer (version 5 at the time) robustly supported CSS2 layout features. CSS2 was capable of supplanting tables for many layout tasks, but its implementation (especially with respect to layout) was so haphazardly inconsistent across different browsers that most devs did not utilize its new features until browsers consistently supported them, which wasn't until Internet Explorer 6 achieved >95% marketshare in 2002 and devs "standardized" on its CSS2 implementation. The earliest I remember hearing debates on tables vs. CSS was circa 2003/2004. In 2001, a more plausible argument would be over whether it's a good idea to implement a site completely in Macromedia Flash, and whether that was the future of web development. There were some pretty astounding Flash websites back then, e.g. link link ▶ this video link Indeed, 2advanced was notorious for throwing huge warehouse raves, during which the CEO would DJ. Sounds like something ripped straight from the pages of Bleeding Edge.

Oh yeah, 2A forever. Found them in 1999-2000 (when I was 12 or 13 and first learning to code and such) and it was positively mind-blowing. v2 ( ▶ this video ) and v3 ( link ) made me rethink everything, and I promptly switched focus to learning webdev over coding desktop apps. Those Flash days were fun, between 2A, Balthaser, DerBauer, etc. But yeah, 2A made me completely rethink media and interaction. Go figure, I work on interactive web stuff and film stuff geared towards the web. I can still hear the first piece of music that would play in the background of 2A v2 in my head 20+ years later, and still occasionally listen to Eric's trance mixes on Soundcloud.

This reminds me of 2advanced studios way back when. They built crazy futuristic flash GUIs like this. Here's one from 2001: ▶ this video

Back in the days of Flash the web was full of interesting and weird UIs with tons of art and animation. ie - link ▶ this video Now its just the same boring Bootstrap/Material design cookie cutter crap everywhere.