Tuesday, November 29, 2011

Search/People Power

When you are looking for an answer to any type of question, or when you are looking for resources for your research paper all you have to do is go on the Internet and find what you need. However, that was not the case more than 10 years ago. Now, the Internet is a central part of our lives and many people today have no idea how they could ever function without it. Download: The True Story of the Internet is about the ongoing revolution of the internet and about the men and women who made it possible. This documentary is hosted by technology journalist John Heileman.
Search:
In this portion of the documentary "Search" is about the history of search engines, mainly Yahoo, Google, and Exite. Similar to many inventors, the invention of Yahoo was unintentional. Founders Jerry Yang and David Filo were trying to find a way to win a fantasy basketball league by using the internet. The idea of a search engine, Yahoo, was created and banner ads were used as funds for the company. Yahoo's biggest rival at the time was Exite.

Google was founded by two young Stanford students, Larry Page and Sergey Brin. Both were able to find sites that were relevant by counting the links. The issue of funding became a problem, yet these two youngsters found a way to fund their new company. They came across an idea that Bill Goss, founder of Idealab, had and altered it. Goss's idea was to sell keywords and show paid ads that were of interest to people. Page and Brin decided to separate ads from the organic search results.

It amazes me how in class we constantly see graduate students or young people creating multi-billion dollar companies. It is truly inspiring to see 

People Power:
This portion discussed the rise and fall of Napster as well as some insight on Facebook and YouTube. Due to the creation of these social media websites, the new era "Web 2.0" was created. I remember using Napster when I was younger and remember thinking how slow it was to download one song. There were no other sites that were anything like Napster, but even then, such a innovative site made me want something that was faster. Regardless, Napster was also the beginning of music on the web. Today there are a variety of websites and music softwares such as Pandora, Spotify, iTunes, and radio stations that might have been brought about due to Napster. The fall of Napster might have been a major controversy, but because of this company, music on the web is constantly evolving.

An interesting point that was made in this video was that the internet should bring back the common person as an author. I believe that the internet is going to keep evolutionizing and new forms of communication are going to keep being created. Facebook, for example, has helped connect friends and family members all around the world. YouTube and Facebook keep updating their websites and the constant changes and improvements allow for more communication styles.


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