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15 Websites That Changed the World
Posted by
Zonk
on Mon Aug 14, 2006 04:37 PM
from the shake-it-up dept.
from the shake-it-up dept.
nuke-alwin writes "To mark the web's 15th anniversary, The Guardian is reporting on 15 websites that changed the world. Everything from commercial sites like eBay and Amazon to social collaboratives like Wikipedia and Slashdot made the list." From the article's comments on Blogger: "Content was once made by companies for passive consumption by people. After Blogger, people were the content. They wrote about and read about their friends, their opinions, their cats. (There was a lot about cats in the early blogs.) None had a huge audience but collectively they were massive. Now you see TV networks saying: 'We've gotta get on the web because that's where the audience is,' says Williams."
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15 Websites That Changed the World
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Someone's gotta do this, and I don't like whoring (Score:5, Informative)
(http://www.chromecode.com/)
Re:Someone's gotta do this, and I don't like whori (Score:5, Funny)
(http://www.chromecode.com/)
one man's summary (Score:5, Funny)
(http://www.mscigars.com/)
2. wikipedia.com - Brittanica on the bathroom wall
3. napster.com - for about three minutes
4. youtube.com - eh
5. blogger.com - they wanted to acknowledge blogging, this is their surrogate
6. friendsreunited.com (School reunion site)- never heard of it. probably helpful for stalking that girl who spit on you in 10th grade.
7. drudgereport.com (News site)- not really a News Site. A link aggregator with an agenda.
8. myspace.com - for about three MORE minutes
9. amazon.com - changed shopping, anyway.
10. slashdot.org - WHO?
11. salon.com (Online magazine and media company)- changed the world? How about "provides a home for whining elitists"?
12. craigslist.org - supermarket community bulletin board with more eyes
13. google.com - changed the Internet maybe. The WORLD? nah
14. yahoo.com - see #13
15. easyjet.com (Budget airline)- see #6
If this is how the Internet has changed the world, please have it changed back promptly.
Re:one man's summary (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:one man's summary (Score:5, Interesting)
(http://derekl1963.livejournal.com/)
Slashdot may not have changed history (Score:4, Funny)
(http://slashdot.org/ | Last Journal: Saturday November 03, @04:58AM)
Re:No dupe? (Score:5, Funny)
(http://www.tanningbeds4less.com/ | Last Journal: Sunday November 05 2006, @07:23AM)
It was ABOUT Slashdot, not ON Slashdot. otherwise there would have been the obligatory dupe, listing them twice.
Re:No dupe? (happy?) (Score:5, Funny)
(http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc3675.html)
How come Slashdot is only listed once?
It was ABOUT Slashdot, not ON Slashdot. otherwise there would have been the obligatory dupe, listing them twice.
Re:Someone's gotta do this, and I don't like whori (Score:5, Informative)
Missing one... (Score:3, Funny)
(http://www.creimer.ws/ | Last Journal: Friday January 26 2007, @12:40PM)
#16 The Pirate Bay? (Score:5, Interesting)
users: alot
What is it? One of the only filesharing sites able to stick it to the man. Even after dealing with police.
Hopefully eventually able to trigger positive discussion and evolution in copyright laws.
"Sticking it to the man" (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://slashdot.org/~Infonaut/journal | Last Journal: Tuesday July 31, @02:22PM)
From Wikipedia [wikipedia.org]:
Upon reopening on June 3, 2006, its number of visitors has doubled, the increased popularity attributed to greater exposure through the recent media coverage. This has in turn increased the advertisement revenues to the founders Gottfrid Svartholm and Fredrik Neij. The advertisements now generate about 75,000 USD per month according to speculations by Swedish newspaper SvD.
I guess you could call that "sticking it to the man." You could also call it profiting. Perhaps a bit less Robin Hood and a bit more ticket scalper.
Myspace, blogger, youtube (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://phorm.phormix.com/ | Last Journal: Monday May 19 2003, @12:08PM)
What about goatse? (Score:5, Funny)
napster.com? (Score:4, Insightful)
(http://www.muftak.net/)
Re:napster.com? (Score:4, Insightful)
napster.com is not a website ... (Score:4, Insightful)
(http://perry.freeshell.org/)
Phrases like "the music swapping website kazza" are all two frequent in the media. I find this really depressing because it highlights the general lack of understanding of technologies which the authors then proceed to make value judgements about.
Most of this is old news to Slashdotters, but just in case a "journalist" reads this post (yeh, right):
When anyone calls Napster a "website", they quickly expose that they have no experience with the software they are talking about.
Eh, got that off my chest, despite being a bit OT
Quibbler (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://www.timoregan.com/)
#3 - Napster.com
Ummm... I don't think anybody was going there because of the website. Napster was technically a program that you downloaded and installed on your computer. It used different ports than good ol' 80 and it was not a website in any recognizable way.
Nothing wrong with Napster, I'm just sayin'!... If we let napster.com in, then why not let microsoft.com in?
There was a lot about cats in the early blogs. (Score:5, Funny)
15 Years ago... (Score:5, Funny)
(http://www.nuclearelephant.com/)
It was much BETTER...
anon.penet.fi (Score:4, Insightful)
It's hard to argue that any of these sites (Score:3, Interesting)
(http://kamthaka.blogspot.com/ | Last Journal: Wednesday March 30 2005, @03:18PM)
Google is the strongest contender. But even Google did not invent the search engine, it "merely" improved it greatly. The Altavista engine, in its day, was a marvel, and it introduced on-line translation. But at the same time Altavista launched, there was Lycos and Excite.
As a class search engine sites have certainly changed the world. But they appear to me to be a natural development of the web.
It is possible that a web site like the Drudge report might tip an election and change the world but it hasn't happened.
5.5m users a month? (Score:3, Interesting)
(http://www.celardore.net/)
What the hell does 5.5m users per month mean? AFAIK the user IDs aren't even at 1m yet.
Re:5.5m users a month? (Score:4, Funny)
(http://ettlz.blogspot.com/ | Last Journal: Sunday February 12 2006, @06:53PM)
Not everyone bothers getting an account (Score:5, Funny)
Slashdot's standing... (Score:4, Interesting)
(http://www.angelfire...epublican/index.blog | Last Journal: Thursday July 27 2006, @12:00AM)
Katz was a fucktard but the Hellmouth [slashdot.org] series [slashdot.org] were groundbreaking. [slashdot.org]
LK
Tim Berners-Lee (Score:3, Interesting)
School reunion website...? (Score:3)
(http://thenoxx.deviantart.com/ | Last Journal: Wednesday November 30 2005, @04:14PM)
Oh well. I suppose most irk-worthy point is that artists haven't found a large, well-organized central hub on the web to gather around. I suppose Deviantart counts, but... not really. Friends that are far more talented than I can't find any good groups (and technically, the site discourages forming groups. Brilliant.) to organize projects with or easily find people of the same caliber, or just the same level of dedication (hobbyist vs. career artist).
That, and as it was noted before, the job-finding/headhunting websites are ridiculously inept in comparison to what they could achieve and help others achieve.
It's a little uk/euro centric (Score:5, Informative)
(http://graha.ms/ | Last Journal: Friday August 17, @06:22PM)
OTOH easyjet are huge. I'm not sure how you could miss them, they pretty much changed the european airline industry.
I thought it was actually a fairly good list. Considering i've used almost every one of those sites, and at least half of them would be in my personal top 10.
The real innovators (Score:5, Interesting)
(http://www.animats.com)
#16 (Score:3, Funny)
OK, maybe it didn't change, like, the WHOLE world, but it sure rocked mine.
Interesting list (Score:3, Interesting)
I have never been on napster.com, but I see why it made the list.
I have never heard of either "blogger.com" or "friendsreunited.com"
slashdot.org - Yay!
salon.com - What? How did this crappy website change the world?
google.com - Duh.. Why isn't this number 1?
yahoo.com - Really? Yahoo?
15. easyjet.com (Budget airline) -- And out of nowhere. Easyjet? Man, I love Easyjet. I fly them everywhere I can. But I don't see how they changed the world or even influenced any other sites very much. This was a really wierd one to be on this list.
Geocities (Score:5, Insightful)
Missing what got the internet started (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://www.supportdaniel.org/)
P.S. I think Yahoo should be ranked higher. Yahoo was a leader in searching and portalness. Mapquest.com also maybe should have made the list over say Salon.com or easyjet.com
No Sex For You ! (Score:3, Funny)
When's the last time anyone was paid $14 million For Sex [slashdot.org] ?
LiveJournal (Score:4, Interesting)
I was wondering why not LiveJournal, too. They were both created in 1999 (and according to Wikipedia, LJ was March compared with August for Blogger). LiveJournal also combined it with the social networking aspect, which I don't believe Blogger does(?). It wasn't the first social networking site - but are there any earlier ones still going today? And were there any earlier social networking sites that combined it with "blogging"/journalling?
Not to mention the source being open, and having spawned many other sites. Does that apply to blogger?
(Though I disagree it's "dragging down journalistic standards" - LiveJournal is primarily used for journalling and discussions with friends, not "pretending to be a journalist" like many blogs - but nonetheless, LJ can be used for stereotypical standalone blogging if you wish.)
Re:Blipverse. (Score:3)
(Last Journal: Monday January 06 2003, @10:36PM)