ある創業者の「昔ながらのウェブ」への賭けが実を結んでいる理由

Allison Johnson

is a senior reviewer with over a decade of experience writing about consumer tech. She has a special interest in mobile photography and telecom. Previously, she worked at DPReview.

Craig Campbell walked away from the river of investor money flowing into AI to create, of all things, a website.

Sure, Campbell probably could have started an AI company. He’s a former engineer at Meta and an experienced tech founder who in 2022 sold his last venture — an e-commerce tool for businesses that use Shopify — right as the AI boom was booming. “I had my prior VC investors breathing down my neck, going ‘start something else. We’ll write you a blank check.’” He had other ideas.

People generally aren’t rushing to get into the website business, what with the Google Zero event horizon approaching. Campbell was undeterred and has grown his service — Past Maps — into a sustainable business. And he’s managed it in an increasingly unlikely way: via organic search.

Past Maps is true to its name. The site lets you view historical maps of a particular region with a modern-day map overlaid. You can adjust the opacity to fade between the two views. The maps come from publicly available sources like the US Geological Survey, but the tools to allow people to explore them in this way were developed by Campbell. He built them to help inform his metal detection hobby — by pinpointing the modern-day locations of old structures and trails, he’d identify new places to go looking for artifacts. He started sharing his map tooling on Reddit with other metal detection enthusiasts and found that other people wanted to get their hands on what he’d created.