TheDawn.com was Prince’s first official website. It was launched on 14 February, 1996 with an eight-page wedding program titled “Coincidence or fate?”.
The website was advertised to be delivering unreleased music, new videos, merchandise, books, exclusive interviews, cologne, jewelry, games and tour information on and affiliated artists.
Thedawn.com contained the following distinctive areas:
- Instructions 2 The Dawn: a visitor’s guide to the site, explaining how to purchase items from the “Galleria”, the website virtual store.
- Wedding Program: the 8 pages wedding program entitled “Coincidence or fate?”.
- Visit the chat room: a chat room.
- Visit the guest book: a page where the visitor could leave his name and a message.
- Suggested reading: ?
- The Dawn galleria: the website virtual online store, it contained Prince’s and albums, related artists albums,clothing, jewelry and home videos.
- Win a guitar!: a contest to win a replica of a Symbol guitar.
- Sound samples: streaming area where to listen to Prince and ‘s music in real audio format.
- Video samples: streaming area where to view Prince and ‘s music video in quick time format.
- Message: a page containing a text from explaining his views about the situation between him and Warner Bros. The message was later changed into a less personal text about the same subject, turned into third person mode.1996
Source: PrinceVault.com
Not much is remaining from the site, and we currently do not have a working copy. If anyone can contribute more, please email us at sam@samjennings.com