Wednesday, May 5, 2010

IMPORTANT EVENTS IN THE WORLD OF INTERNET

The Webby Awards is the leading international award honoring

excellence on the Internet. Established in 1996 during the Web's infancy,

the Webbys are presented by The International Academy of Digital Arts

and Sciences, a 650-member body of leading Web experts, business

figures, luminaries, visionaries and creative celebrities.

The Academy is an intellectually diverse organization that includes

members such as musicians Beck and David Bowie, Internet inventor

Vint Cerf, political columnist Arianna Huffington, Real Networks CEO

Rob Glaser, "The Simpsons" creator Matt Groening, R/GA Founder and

Chairman Robert Greenberg, Virgin Atlantic Chairman and Founder

Richard Branson, and The Weinstein Company Co-Founder Harvey

Weinstein. Members also include writers and editors from publications

such as The New York Times, Wired, Details, Fast Company, Elle, The Los

Angeles Times, Vibe, and WallPaper. The 13th Annual Webby Awards

received nearly 10,000 entries from over 60 countries and all 50 states

and generated over 750 million media impressions worldwide.

The Webby Awards presents two honors in every category -- The

Webby Award and The People's Voice Award -- in each of its four

entry types: Websites, Interactive Advertising, Online Film & Video and

Mobile Web. Members of The International Academy of Digital Arts and

Sciences select the nominees for both awards in each category, as well as

the winners of the Webby Awards. However, you, the online community,

determine the winners of The People's Voice by voting for the nominated

work that you believe to be the best in each category. Each year, the

People's Voice Awards garners hundreds of thousands of votes from the

Web community all over the world.

The list of winners for 2009 (awarded on Monday, June 08, 2009):

CRAIGSLIST expands outside San Francisco (2000):

Facts:

Company name: Craigslist, Inc.

Type: Private

Founded: 1995 (incorporated 1999)

Founder: Craig Newmark

Headquarters: San Francisco Bay Area, USA

Area served: 570 cities in 50 countries

Key people: Jim Buckmaster (CEO)

Website: www.craigslist.org

Type of site: classifieds, forums

Determination: In 2000, the free classifieds site broadened its reach

outside of San Francisco into nine additional U.S. cities, sending chills

down the spines of newspaper publishers everywhere. Today Craigslist

serves free listings in more than 500 cities in 50 countries, serving as a

model for no-frills business and community success and the catalyst for

countless jobs, apartments, and just about anything else you can think of.


 


 

GOOGLE AdWords launches (2000):


 

Facts:

Company name: Google Inc.

Type: Public

Founded: September 4, 1998

Founders: Sergey M. Brin, Lawrence E. Page

Headquarters: Googleplex, Mountain View, California, United States

Area served: Worldwide

Key people: Eric E. Schmidt (Chairman) & (CEO)

Industry: Internet, Computer software

Employees: 19,665 – September 30, 2009[4]

Website: www.google.com

Determination: With the launch of AdWords in October 2000, Google

turned advertising on its head. The self-service ad program opened up the

marketplace to any business, no matter how big or small, and allowed

advertisers to target their customers with laser-sharp precision.

WIKIPEDIA launches (2001):


 

Determination: Containing 20,000 articles in 18 languages by the end of

its first year online, Wikipedia today boasts more than 14 million articles in

271 different languages. The free open-source encyclopedia epitomizes the

Internet's power to bring strangers from around the world together to

collaborate on projects both big and small.


 

NAPSTER - Shut Down (2001):


 

Facts: Napster was an online music file sharing service created by Shawn

Fanning while he was attending Northeastern University in Boston. The

service operated between June 1999 and July 2001.

Its technology allowed people to easily share their MP3 files with

other participants, bypassing the established market for such songs and

thus leading to the music industry's accusations of massive copyright

violations. Although the original service was shut down by court order

(because of it's facilitation of transfer of copyrighted material), it paved

the way for decentralized peer-to-peer file-distribution programs, which

have been much harder to control. The service was named Napster after

Fanning's hairstyle-based nickname

Determination: Although Napster was shut down in 2001, it opened the

file-sharing floodgates. Its demise sparked a wave of innovations that

forever changed how we obtain and experience music and video - from

Hulu to iTunes to Radiohead famously dropping its label and selfdistributing

their "In Rainbows" CD online for free.


 

GOOGLE IPO (2004):

Google's IPO, one of the largest in history, put the six year old

search engine on the path to becoming the most dominant and influential

company of the decade. From gmail and YouTube to Google Earth, Google

Maps, and Google Android, the Internet giant and constant innovator is the

engine that powers countless aspects of our everyday lives.


 

YOU TUBE - Online video revolution (2006)


 

Facts:

Type: Subsidiary, Limited Liability Company

Founded: February, 2005

Founders: Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, Jawed Karim

Headquarters: San Bruno, California, United States

Area served: Worldwide

Key people: Chad Hurley (CEO), Steve Chen (CTO), Jawed Karim (Advisor)

Owner: Google Inc.

Slogan: Broadcast Yourself

Website: www.youtube.com

Alexa rank: 4

Type of site: MPEG-4 Video hosting service

Advertising: Google AdSense

Available in: 14 languages

Launched: February 2005

Determination: In 2006, a perfect storm of faster bandwidth, cheaper

camcorders, and the groundbreaking use of Adobe's Flash 9 video player

by YouTube combined to launch the online video revolution. The trifecta

led to a boom in homemade and professional content - the Diet Coke and

Mentos guys, lonelygirl15, SNL's Lazy Sunday, and Senator George Allen's

"macacagate" - that has reshaped everything from pop culture to politics.


 


 

FACEBOOK -Opens to non-college students and Twitter takes off

(2006):


 

Facts:

Type: Private

Founded: Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA (February 4, 2004)

Headquarters: Palo Alto, California

Dublin, Ireland

Key people: Mark Zuckerberg,

Founder and CEO: Dustin Moskovitz,

Co-founder: Sheryl Sandberg

Revenue 300 million USD (2008 est.)

Employees 900+

Website: Facebook.com

Alexa rank: 2

Type of site: Social network service

Advertising: Banner ads, referral marketing

Registration: Required

Determination: In September 2006, a social networking site for college

students changed its user qualifications to include anyone 13 and older

with a valid e-mail address. Facebook struck an immediate chord -- and

almost overnight, social media went main stream. Less than a month later,

the creators of Twitter acquired the company and its assets from its

investors, paving the way for the service to take off in 2007. Both

companies took social media mainstream, radically changing the way we

connect, collaborate, and communicate with everyone from friends to

colleagues to customers.


 

The iPhone debuts (2007):


 

Facts:

Manufacturer: Apple Inc.

Type: Candybar smartphone

Release date: Original: June 29, 2007

3G: July 11, 2008

3GS: June 19, 2009

Units sold: 21.17 million (as of Q2 2009)

Storage capacity: Flash memory

Original: 4, 8, & 16 GB

3G: 8 & 16 GB

3GS: 16 & 32 GB

Memory: Original & 3G: 128 MB eDRAM[12]

3GS: 256 MB eDRAM

Determination: The iPhone was released on June 29, 2007. By the end of

the weekend, half a million had been sold, and smartphones had gone

from a luxury item to a necessity. The iPhone inspired the development of

operating systems like Google Android, as well as an app for just about

every aspect of modern life. Over the next decade, it's estimated that a

billion new users will come to the Internet for first time through mobile device

U.S. Presidential Campaign (2008):


 

Determination: The Internet altered presidential politicking in 2008 much

as television had forty years earlier during the Kennedy/Nixon race. From

videos like "Obama Girl" and the Reverend Wright clip shaping the debate,

to social media mobilizing voters, to record-breaking online fundraising

from small donors, every facet of the way campaigns are run was

permanently transformed.


 


 

Iranian election protests (2009):


 

Determination: When Iran's 2009 presidential election produced fishy

results, the opposition took to the tweets and the "Twitter Revolution" was

born. In fact, it was so vital to organizing demonstrations that the U.S.

State Department asked the company to delay planned maintenance.. The

protests also highlighted Twitter's key asset as a protest tool: Since most

users don't access it through a central website, it's nearly impossible to

censor.

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