Search The first part of the series called "Search" detailed how search engines started and the battle the inevitably ensued. Yahoo was the first name to jump onto the scene developing the first site that would list related sites or sources queried by a user. Yahoo was developed by 2 Stanford students that experimented with the internet while there advising professor took a year sabbatical. Their idea was novel in the web world, most people didnt look at the web as a great source of revenue. One of the venture capitalists that invested in Yahoo! described the Yahoo! "office" (a mobile trailer) as an "Abysmal pit".
Very hesitant to the idea, Yahoo! began to post banner advertisements in an effort to generate revenue from the site. The founders feared that the ads would alienate and drive users away from their site. Fortunately for Yahoo this was not the case, the site would continue to grow and be considered one of the top search engines on the web.
Not far after the formation of Yahoo was a simplistic site that rocked the search world and to this day continues to actively shake and jive the web world; of course I am talking about Google. Google initial claim to fame was developing a rating system for sites based on the number of links to that site. This meant when a specific site is linked by other sites, the site's search ranking or relevancy in the google search engine would increase. This simplistic system revolutionized search engines and launched Google to their current power house position in the World.
People Power
It is quite amazing in the last 10 years how important individualism became in the web world. Search engines and other platforms initially generated revenue through advertisements on a massive level, money from the public as a whole. Recently, advertising has made its way into the world of social networking and related material like Facebook, Digg, Myspace, youtube and more.
The internet has become the strongest tool for crowd sourcing, market research, and public opinion. Before the internet, newspapers and TV companies controlled information dissemination and most viewable materials. Back then it was nearly impossible for a single person to distribute his or her message without bending and obeying the companies controlling information outlets. This has radically changed with the development of social networking through the internet. It is as easy as writing a sentence and clicking a mouse, those 2 actions place your message on the internet for the viewing public to witness. Click of a mouse can now instantly upload a video that normally would not be seen, this act has shaken up traditional journalism allowing anyone individual to post acts of journalism.
Facebook is a prime example of explosive growth in a social networking niche' that everyone boastfully or secretly enjoys. Facebook allows a user to post information about themselves or subject of interest allowing all accepted friends to view or interact with. Founder of Facebook Mark Zuckerberg was astonished by how quick his site grew, "within the first 2 weeks, 2/3 of Harvard was on Facebook. Then Students from other schools starting emailing us asking to open sites for their schools. It went to all universities then highschools then businesses then open to the public".
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