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15 Websites That Changed the World

Posted by ryuzaki0 on 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."

9 of 298 comments (clear)

  1. Someone's gotta do this, and I don't like whoring by Enselic · · Score: 5, Informative

    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)

  2. #16 The Pirate Bay? by Keruo · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.
  3. Re:Someone's gotta do this, and I don't like whori by Enselic · · Score: 5, Funny

    Great, misformatted and I forgot to check 'Post Anonymously'. Great.

  4. What about goatse? by Anonymous+Crowhead · · Score: 5, Funny

    That changed my world, permanently.

  5. one man's summary by acvh · · Score: 5, Funny

    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.

    1. Re:one man's summary by PMuse · · Score: 5, Interesting
      From profound to negligible, they are:
      • 13. google.com - Search engines indeed changed the world, but Google has never claimed to be the first.
      • 9. amazon.com, 1. eBay.com, 15. easyjet.com (Budget airline) - Online commerce is important, but there were many pioneers. Expedia.com or one of it's bretheren might deserve a mention, but the importance of budjet airlines like easyjet wasn't their websites.
      • 5. blogger.com , 4. youtube.com - Content from the masses -- writing, video, and music, too. With the cost of publishing, distribution, and holding inventory reduced to near zero, change is indeed afoot.
      • 6. friendsreunited.com (School reunion site), 8. myspace.com - Social networking sites certainly deserve a mention. The strength of their effect on social organization is not yet known.
      • 2. wikipedia.com - Online collaboration in software is changing the world, but outside the software field it hasn't proven itself yet. The field is still young, though.
      • 3. napster.com - Herald of the era of online music and of music -sharing lawsuits.
      • 14. yahoo.com - Unable to point to a great iconic achievement, the portals will wind up sharing a footnote with AOL.
      • 10. slashdot.org - A fine example of its kind, but 'changed history' is a little much.
      • 12. craigslist.org - Ditto.
      • 11. salon.com (Online magazine and media company) - Ditto.
      • 7. drudgereport.com (News site) - Ditto, sort of.

      --
      "We reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals." --The American President (20.1.2009)
  6. There was a lot about cats in the early blogs. by overshoot · · Score: 5, Funny

    Silly, that's because a cat owns the Internet.

    --
    Lacking <sarcasm> tags, /. substitutes moderation as "Troll."
  7. 15 Years ago... by Nuclear+Elephant · · Score: 5, Funny
    To get a handle on the scale of what has happened, think back to what the world was like 15 years ago.

    It was much BETTER...
    • John Romero wrote better games
    • People still built robot girlfriends
    • Nobody posted Goatsie on fidomail (and if they did, you had plenty of time to cancel the download)
    • If you didn't have anything interesting to say in a chatroom, you could just ask, "hey isn't this cool?"
    • Chicks digged us, cos we could hack their school grades and launch global thermonuclear wars

  8. The real innovators by Animats · · Score: 5, Interesting
    Here are some of the real innovators. The links given are all to their earliest pages, from 1996.
    • Fedex.com FedEx had the first major web site that did something - you could track packages and get an immediate response.
    • Viaweb.com The first web site that supported page creation via the web. The first general-purpose shopping cart. Eventually became Yahoo Store. Implemented in LISP.