Web Tips
HFCC Web Design and Development Club
Amazing Things that Advanced the Internet / Web
March 27, 2007
Early web advancements
- Yahoo!
Must be respected as the first major web site widely used by users of the Web to find and access information. Pre-dating search engines, the Yahoo! web directory (categorized web sites) was started by two Stanford University doctoral student as a way to keep track of their personal interests on the Internet (almost like bookmarks/favorites, only for everyone's use). Yahoo! celebrated its first million-hit day in the fall of 1994, translating to almost 100 thousand unique visitors and soon followed with a comprehensive portal of services including people search, maps, free e-mail, Internet dating/personals, online games, tv guide, a customizable interface, worldwide news, and financial and weather information.
- Bartleby and Project Gutenberg
- eBay
- Streaming
- Broadband
These amazing web sites have digitized, archived, and distributed an emense quantity of public domain cultural work, including over 21,000 books in Project Gutenberg (and fifty new e-books being added each week). Examples include Mark Twain, Aurthor Conan Doyle author of the Sherlock Holmes books, Edgar Allan Poe, Jules Verne, Charles Dickens, Shakespeare, H.G. Wells, T.S. Eliot, Plato, religious works (the Bible, Qur'an, etc.), history, poetry, crime novels, and math books. Bartleby is very similiar and includes all of the above as well as encyclopedias, dictionaries, thesaurus, fact books, quotations, and much much more. All at your fingertips!
Later web advancements
- Google Search
Coincidentally founded by two other graduate students at Standard University, Google departed from the dense content, diverse-feature web portal model common at the time (Yahoo!, MSN, Excite, etc.), and changed the face of searches with a simple, powerful search engine. In essence, Google quickly entered and took over the search engine market by saying [not in their words] "here were are, this is what we do, all that we do, and we do it the best." Stated another way, if you want to do a lot of things, e.g. read the news, sports scores, or your horoscope, or check e-mail, use a portal -- if you want to find information on the Web, use Google. Since their early days, they've added many of these featured, but have maintained their signature, simple interface. Part of their success is also, not only to the voluminous amount of web pages they index, but their new search engine algorithm that analyzed now only the page you are looking for, but pages that linked to it, also known as "link popularity." In short, Google took over!
On September 21, 1999, the beta label came off the website, as Google handled 3 million searches per day and appeared on Time magazine's Top Ten Best Cybertech list for 1999. As 2000 ended, Google handling more than 100 million search queries a day. In 2004, Google's site index increased to 4.28 billion web pages. Google founders said to be worth 16.6 Billion each in March 2007.
- GMail
No, Google is not underwriting this article. They've just responsible for a lot of amazing new things on the Internet and Web. Google mail, better known as GMail, was the first to significantly increase the storage made available in an free e-mail account. On April 1, 2004 made 1 GB of storage available for their e-mail users, with Yahoo! responding at that time by upgrading the storage of all free Yahoo! Mail accounts from 4 MB to 100 MB. This move by Google was another major advancement in the Internet / Web world. Many a jaw dropped.
- WiMAX
Only a decade ago, the Web was a baby, a young child at best, maybe 4-5 year old. Today, thanks to the WiMAX technology, broadband wireless Web access can be delivered to entire cities. WiMAX is thus sometimes called Wireless MAN (Metropolitan Area Network).
- Google Maps
Mapquest, later purchased by Yahoo had been around for years and should be acknowledged as have been and still an excellent service, even including ariel/satellite views. But in typical Google fashion, they turned up the heat, dropped some jaws, and with the release of Google Maps. What was amazing about it -- no need to use those pesky North, South, West, East buttons that would cause the browser to reload with a new, repositioned map in it. With Google Maps, all you had to do was drag you map and you moved. It was instant, it was fast, it was cool! it took Yahoo! years to catch up to that.
But that's not where it ends. Later, Google added a feature to its maps interface where the user can type a business type and zip code, and be returned with a map highlighted where business of these types on it in that zip code, including their names and contact information. This makes it extremely easy to find local business and know exactly where all of them are located and how to reach them. That wasn't enough; later Google Maps added the ability to view traffic conditions on the roads seen in your map search. Could be ask for anything more practical in our lives. No need. Google will think of it.
- Google Earth
Ariel photos available online had been around for years. As mentioned, MapQuest had ariel photos, and Microsoft had TerraServer, which was very cool as well. But these were 2-D representations. Again, in trus Google fashion, they left everyone in absolute awe with their incredible cool, eye-candy and more application, Google Earth! Purchased in 2004 and renamed Google Earth in 2005, this super-app presents the user with spinning globe of the earth. You type in an address anywhere in the world or a special location such as the Taj mahal or Grand Canyon, and you are "flown" there to view that area, tour that area, many locations in both 2-D and 3-D, and dynamically highlight businesses, banks, schools, ATMS, restaurants, and the like in the users viewing area. It has to be seen to be believed. The interface allows the user to easily and dynamically zoom out, zoon in, spin around, fly around, and change their view from the x, y, and z axis.
Later, Google released Google Moon and Google Mars using the same technology.
- YouTube
- Internet P2P (peer-to-peer) / Napster
- Flash
- Massive Multiplayer Online Games (MMOG)
- CSS
- Web 2.0
Founded in February 2005 by three former employees of PayPal, YouTube swept the nation and world in a matter of months! It was everywhere. Staffed by 67 employees, named TIME magazine's "Invention of the Year" for 2006, in November 2006, Google purchased YouTube for $1.65 billion. How about that for fast business development and riches! And think about - all based on the idea of creating a simple web site to allow people to post and stream videos and talk about them.