Webby Awards 2009

[Meadbh]

Welcome to the Webby Awards

The Webby Awards cite the ten most influential moments of the 2000s as:

Craigslist expands beyond SF (2000)
Google AdWords launches (2000)
Wikipedia launches (2001)
Napster shut down (2001)
Google IPO (2004)
Online video revolution (2006)
Facebook opens to non-college students and Twitter takes off (2006)
The iPhone debuts (2007)
US Presidential campaign (2008)
Iranian election protests (2009).

Do you agree? If you were a Webby judge, what events would you have nominated?

 

[REWahoo]

If you were a Webby judge, what events would you have nominated?

Amazing that they would overlook the obvious:

Dory36 creates FIRECalc and launches Early-Retirement.org (2002)

 

[Andy R]

Dory36 creates FIRECalc and launches Early-Retirement.org (2002)

I can't believe they forgot that from their list!

One important metric is the number of users online. Most of the other events would not be possible without "tipping points" being reached with total online users, rapid highspeed internet adoption, lower PC costs, etc.

This list seems to skew towards the founding dates of the juggernauts of the internet ecosystem. Although those dates do define the landscape today it took many other companies to help evolve things so their models would be adopted and thrive.

Friendster was the first big success in social media but people were still cared to connect and share data on the internet. MySpace helped foster mass acceptance of social media and user generated content. Without those setting the stage facebook would not have been able to flourish IMO. None of the above could be accomplished without critical mass of people online. Cheap computers and affordable highspeed internet were required to get the population online.

I don't think Napster shutting down should be on the list. People can steal music just as easily today with hundreds of other tools.

I also don't think the Iranian election protests should be on the list.

 

[ERD50]

....

Friendster was the first big success in social media but people were still cared to connect and share data on the internet. MySpace helped foster mass acceptance of social media and user generated content. Without those setting the stage facebook would not have been able to flourish IMO. None of the above could be accomplished without critical mass of people online. Cheap computers and affordable highspeed internet were required to get the population online.

And in an indirect way - texting. Kids texting really got them into the immediate connection and social group thing. That may have been an important step in the internet social groups like MySpace and FaceBook.

I don't think Napster shutting down should be on the list. People can steal music just as easily today with hundreds of other tools.

Maybe iTunes should be on there then. It seemed to be the first really popular site where people were willing to pay for the music. Some people stole it, not so much to steal, but it was the easiest way to get it. iTunes changed that. (I hardly use it, if I'm going to buy music it isn't going to be compressed, and I usually buy entire CDs - their pricing is not so great for that).

I also don't think the Iranian election protests should be on the list.

Maybe, maybe not. But it resonated with me - the internet played a big part in getting news out in a very tightly controlled situation. I think that is very significant. I may have commented on this before, but I read a piece reflecting on "Big Brother". Their feeling (and mine) was that the internet turned the tables on "Big Brother" - rather than giving those in power the ability to "snoop" on us, it is used to expose the bad guys. Can you imagine the public clamoring to have the text of a proposed bill mailed to every interested citizen?

-ERD50

 

[CuppaJoe]

Why would Craigslist need to expand beyond SF?


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I just found a cute dashboard widget for Mac, Starry Night:

Apple - Downloads - Dashboard Widgets - Starry Night Widget

Looks good to me so far even though I’m not a real nerd yet.

 

[Meadbh]

Amazing that they would overlook the obvious:

Dory36 creates FIRECalc and launches Early-Retirement.org (2002)

I just knew you would say that!

Personally, I wonder about the omission of blogging (and even vlogging) as a public diary. That's a cultural change for sure.

I see the Iranian election and the Obama presidential campaign as creative applications of new technology. In both cases youth was an enabler. For example, there is a large number of literate and educated young people of both genders who "got it" in Iran.

I remember a discussion about the internet at a business class 10 years ago in which one Iranian (!) said that the Internet was really only a young people's tool. Several of us pointed out that grandparents were eagerly exchanging family photos. Perhaps a more subtle change over the past decade has been the "mainstreaming" of the internet as the default place people go to find information, whether it be about what's on sale to government services. But the bigger picture IMHO is that the medium has put more power in the people's hands - to organize, to share information, and to contribute to a collective enterprise.

 

[unclemick]

The 'H' man successfully pisses off a reasonbly large portion of certain website viewers thus resulting in the creation of: drumroll please - The Bogleheads who don't charge five bucks.

who says I'm not cheap lefthanded and weird?

Yeah yeah - Dory36's FireCalc is way up there. Raddr deserves some mention.

heh heh heh - And I let some to be unnamed women junk my webtv and buy me a real computer.

 

[Danny]

The Retire Early Home Page by John P. Greaney(Intercst) and its explanation of how to use IRS rule 72(t)....gave me the howto and (en)courage to retire at 50 in 2001 along with the early good old days of Motley Fool's Early Retire Page.

 

[plex]

That is an amazingly bad list, only Wikipedia+Craigslist would make it into a top 100 list that I would put together, as someone who practically lives on the net. The other things seem pretty random. Some of them are even huge negatives.