Slashdot Mirror
15 Websites That Changed the World
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."
1. eBay.com 2. wikipedia.com 3. napster.com 4. youtube.com 5. blogger.com 6. friendsreunited.com (School reunion site) 7. drudgereport.com (News site) 8. myspace.com 9. amazon.com 10. slashdot.org 11. salon.com (Online magazine and media company) 12. craigslist.org (A centralised network of online urban communities) 13. google.com (Popular search engine) 14. yahoo.com 15. easyjet.com (Budget airline)
Founded: 2004 by Fredrik Neij and Gottfrid Svartholm
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.
There are no atheists when recovering from tape backup.
Great, misformatted and I forgot to check 'Post Anonymously'. Great.
Not all these changes have been positive. In terms of large-scale changes along those lines I'd probably include the nasties such as doubleclick and whatnot. They've definately had a lasting impression on how advertising is done on the 'net (regardless of poor motives or whether it was a possitive impression)
That changed my world, permanently.
napster.com wasn't really a website that changed the world, napster was a bit of software that changed the world.
#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?
Electric Monkey Pants
1. eBay.com - a big Flea Market
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.
Silly, that's because a cat owns the Internet.
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
Suck.com, the site that basically invented the idiom of political blogging five years early, and mocked salon.com and drudgereport.com on those sites' rise into faddishness among the "old media".
But, of course, a site like Suck would never show up on a list like this. An article about this is basically a shrine to media enthusiasm about the internet-- a validation of the idea that the importance of a website can be measured by the significance that established pre-internet information sources (like The Guardian) attach to it. In such a context, we are of course not going to reward the people who tried to look at the internet as what it actually was, rather than what the media made it out to be.
It was much BETTER...
anon.penet.fi was a classic- more of a service than a website, but it was just one of those things that made anonymnity accesable (and yes, I did post this as AC)
What the hell does 5.5m users per month mean? AFAIK the user IDs aren't even at 1m yet.
I was a /.er for a while beforehand, but when the Columbine shootings happened and then the massive backlash against kids who "don't fit in" sparked the Hellmouth series I was hooked. Slashdot helped to change the world due to those two stories.
Katz was a fucktard but the Hellmouth series were groundbreaking.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
Interesting, he's going to go down in history with similar status as Gutenberg. One of the very very few people alive who will still be referenced in 500, 1000 years where even kings, prime ministers and presidents will be forgotten.
Deleted
And... blogger.com, really? I would think that livejournal would have been a better choice for the "dragging down journalistic standards/bluring the line between infotainment and slice of life." category...
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.)
He said flashing his 4 digit UID. Oi you, get off my lawn.
Deleted
FriendsReunited is a school reunion site, or probably a Web 2.0 social networking paradigm. I can only think of about 1 person in my high school class that isn't listed, it's got phenomenal scope. Unfortunately they started charging to contact people, and quite honestly i dont care that much about contacting old friends... after all I lost contact with them for good reason.
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.
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.
Tequila: It's not just for breakfast anymore!
From Wikipedia:
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.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
www.rodeogirlsinbondage.com
OK, maybe it didn't change, like, the WHOLE world, but it sure rocked mine.
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
Yeah, Geocities. A lot of people made their first (crappy) webpage there and got their feet wet that way.
I think the list is pretty good, but it is missing what got the web started in large part, porn. I don't mean to be a troll, but early in the web's commercial development porn was a big fraction of the business, perhaps a third of the web. I do not know if there is a single pioneering porn website that could be listed with the likes of eBay, Yahoo, and craigslist, but porn's role should not be forgotten.
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
I can't believe Sex.com isn't on that list !
When's the last time anyone was paid $14 million For Sex ?
Wanna fight ? Bend over, stick your head up your ass, and fight for air.
But when it melts server after server, it is surely changing insurance quotes
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
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.
http://outcampaign.org/