15 Websites That Changed the World 298
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."
Someone's gotta do this, and I don't like whoring (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Someone's gotta do this, and I don't like whori (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Someone's gotta do this, and I don't like whori (Score:2)
Well, sure; but other than that you did great!
one man's summary (Score:5, Funny)
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:3, Interesting)
Re:one man's summary (Score:3, Insightful)
Okay. So did Coca Cola and Kleenex change the world?
Uh... yes. Absolutely.
Re:one man's summary (Score:3, Informative)
Google was the first search engine where you would often get the right result on the front page for the first naive query you tried. In other words, the first one that was workable for non-techies.
There's a reason Google was the first engine to have an "I'm feeli
Re:one man's summary (Score:3, Funny)
Oooh, more chances to win!
Salon.com (Score:2)
Re:one man's summary (Score:2, Insightful)
Changed the web, yes, the internet is their next target [com.com].....
Re:one man's summary (Score:3, Funny)
And Usenet. Be fair.
Re:one man's summary (Score:3, Informative)
Google just took over the Deja News database.
Re:one man's summary (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:one man's summary (Score:3, Insightful)
The importance of Amazon and eBay is not that they do online commerce, but that they link small sellers to the international market through a single, searchable site.
Amazon changed the world of used books, not the world of the latest best seller.
eBay changed the world of collectibles and small craftsmen.
KFG
Re:one man's summary (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:one man's summary (Score:3, Insightful)
Oddly enough my favorite, local independent opened the same years as Powell's. I've been their customer since the first day the door opened. I certainly don't order online from them (although I could) since I can just walk over to the store.
If I'm after a best seller I can grab it there, any other bookstore, or even the supermarket. I don't buy that sort of book online unless I already happen to be online shopp
Re:one man's summary (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:one man's summary (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:one man's summary (Score:3, Informative)
Slashdot may not have changed history (Score:4, Funny)
Re:one man's summary (Score:2, Informative)
Easyjet and other low-cost airlines definitely changed travel in a significant way, at least in Europe. Maybe that's not the world, but if the US can have a World Series then we can grant The Guardian a little leeway, no?
Missing from the list: (Score:3, Insightful)
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 Guar
No dupe? (Score:2, Funny)
Re:No dupe? (Score:5, Funny)
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)
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.
Be honest now (Score:2)
How many of these sites actually changed the world ?
Re:Someone's gotta do this, and I don't like whori (Score:2, Funny)
Anyhow, we were the uplink for Amazon and I had to deal with them quite often. One day I asked Nik what "Amazon" was and he told me it was a book store.
I told him it was a really stupid name for a bookstore. Shows what I knew.
Re:Someone's gotta do this, and I don't like whori (Score:3, Interesting)
1. eBay.com - PayPal is actually the site that made eBay what it is today. If it wasn't for PayPals payment format people would be very suspect of eBay and fraud would be in the double digit percentile
2. wikipedia.com - Come back in about three years and we'll see. It's neat, it has potential, it's not ready for prime time.
3. napster.com - The site was worthless. If you want to list internet software, sure. At that rate include AIM.
4. youtube.com - This is today's stir. Much like wik
Re:Someone's gotta do this, and I don't like whori (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Someone's gotta do this, and I don't like whori (Score:5, Informative)
Missing one... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Missing one... (Score:2)
#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.
Re:#16 The Pirate Bay? (Score:2)
I don't know about that. They lost their battle in Sweden and moved to the Netherlands. Most other torrent-sites just give up when they first get closed down. I would like to see TPB spark more debate about copyright issues, but it hasn't really happened yet in the general media (except for in Sweden maybe).
"Sticking it to the man" (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Or: Suprnova.org (Score:2)
I may be wrong, but I think Suprnova.org [wikipedia.org] was the first big torrent tracking site.
Those who are members of the now largely private torrent tracking communities can understand how revolutionary it was.
Perhaps in another five years, Suprnova.org will replace Napster on this list as the mainstream catches up to whats going on.
Myspace, blogger, youtube (Score:5, Insightful)
What about goatse? (Score:5, Funny)
What? (Score:2, Funny)
napster.com? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:napster.com? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:napster.com? (Score:2)
napster.com is not a website ... (Score:4, Insightful)
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)
#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?
web site? (Score:2)
There was a lot about cats in the early blogs. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:There was a lot about cats in the early blogs. (Score:3, Funny)
Aww, aren't they so cute and fuzzy wuzzy? I think I'm gonna go find one of our overlords now and place his cutsy-wutsy self in my lap.*
*Note from feline overlords: The above message of cuteness and cuddliness is not endorsed by Felines Leading Understanding of Fierocity and Feralness in You.(FLUFFY)
Shush (Score:2)
Re:There was a lot about cats in the early blogs. (Score:2)
Re:There was a lot about cats in the early blogs. (Score:2)
Apparently, early bloggers wanted to blog like an Egyptian.
Re:There was a lot about cats in the early blogs. (Score:2)
But only because the mice haven't yet revealed their true intelligence.
FriendsReuni...what? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:FriendsReuni...what? (Score:2)
Actually it may well be that sites like FriendsReunited and that airline one happen to be bigger in the UK. Here we would more likely list classmates.com (though I really only know about them because of all their banner ads) and expedia. Of course that really brings into question the idea that these are 'websites that changed the world'. This seems more like a list of 'websites we really like'.
Funny though, no porn or online dating sites (though I suppose craigslist can count)...
15 Years ago... (Score:5, Funny)
It was much BETTER...
Re:15 Years ago... (Score:3, Insightful)
Everyone wrote better games then. 10 years ago Romero came out with the best game at the time in a genre that has unforunately stuck around with people believing each one is "new".
Re:15 Years ago... (Score:2)
Re:15 Years ago... It was much BETTER... (Score:3, Insightful)
- we got time to do stuff in the real world whilst out little modems crackled away . .
- our girlfriends & family didn't (on the whole) care for the intarweb and so we didn't have to run about cleaning windows sypware, lest we be accused of evil voodoo for sitting near their machine . .
anon.penet.fi (Score:4, Insightful)
It's hard to argue that any of these sites (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
Re:It's hard to argue that any of these sites (Score:2, Interesting)
I also would nominate Yahoo for this same status.
You see, in the early days of the web, there was no way to find anything at all. You had to just hyperlink from one site to another. Most web sites had a Links category where you could find other interesting things. There was no search facility.
Then, the Yahoo guys came along, and they actually started trying to categorize everything. Th
5.5m users a month? (Score:3, Interesting)
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)
Re:5.5m users a month? (Score:2)
That's about all I had to say...
Re:5.5m users a month? (Score:2)
Re:5.5m users a month? (Score:2)
I say, isn't lurking fun?!
Not everyone bothers getting an account (Score:5, Funny)
wikipedia dot com? (Score:2)
Slashdot's standing... (Score:4, Interesting)
Katz was a fucktard but the Hellmouth [slashdot.org] series [slashdot.org] were groundbreaking. [slashdot.org]
LK
Re:Slashdot's standing... (Score:2, Interesting)
Of course sometimes you just end up with Dvorak.
I miss Jon.
KFG
Tim Berners-Lee (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Tim Berners-Lee (Score:3, Insightful)
The web will probably go to the side within another 20 years. Once it does, Tim and others will
School reunion website...? (Score:3)
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.
Re:School reunion website...? (Score:3, Interesting)
Speaking of, why aren't the social websites (yes, I could call them Web 2.0, but then I'd have to go shoot myself) such as del.icio.us, or Flickr? Granted del.icio.us has not actually changed much in-itself it started the whole social thing that is so prevelant
Re:School reunion website...? (Score:2)
Not only were they first (albeit only by a few months), but they really created the whole blogging scene in the first place. LiveJournal is far more worthy of a "website that changes the world" award than Blogger. I don't use either, but LJ started it all, and for the first few years, no one had even heard of Blogger. This is just yet another article from an uninformed journalist that wasn't there at
It's a little uk/euro centric (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Ah, thank you. Had no idea. (Score:2)
Learn something new every day.
It's a UK newspaper (Score:2)
From the TFA (Score:2)
Joe, tell me it ain't so!
Re:From the TFA (Score:2)
FWIW
The real innovators (Score:5, Interesting)
US (Score:2, Interesting)
#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.
Re:Interesting list (Score:2)
Where you even around in the 'good ol days' ?
Re:Interesting list (Score:3, Interesting)
Have you not been on the internet very long!? Yahoo deserves to be on the list more than Google does, in my opinion, for two reasons:
Re:Interesting list (Score:2)
quite a while. Longer than yahoo.
I was just surprised to see them on the list. It's not like I hate yahoo or anything. And clearly you are a big fan. That is great. I can't argue with either of your points.
Yahoo has a really nice currency converter, which I have used for years.
We agree that Salon.com sucks though, right?
Market dynamics in action. (Score:2)
Welcome to the power of the liberal market, catastrophe theory and tipping points, or How Things Change. Who says mathematics is completely useless.
Geocities (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Missing what got the internet started (Score:5, Insightful)
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] ?
A click storm a brewing (Score:2, Funny)
Re:missing websites (Score:2)
WHAT is 2chan and 4chan?
Re:missing websites (Score:2, Informative)
2chan is a Japanese offshoot, while 4chan is the English language board (started by SA goons). 4chan alone has more comment traffic than
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:first off... (Score:3, Insightful)
It does little good to have an Internet if there are no reasons to use it. Several of the sites in their list would qualify as "killer apps," causing someone to buy a PC and hook it up to the Internet where they otherwise wouldn't have done so.
Re:FriendsReunited? EasyJet? Who? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:FriendsReunited? EasyJet? Who? (Score:3, Interesting)
As for what they missed -
1) Hotmail, of course. It's really lame now, but it really was one of the catalysts for people adopting email en masse.
2) CNN.com - I mean, just think back to 9/11/01. Many people didn'
Re:Blipverse. (Score:3)
Re:Dam... (Score:2)