十五年改变世界的十五个网站

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  yoyo 译
  Websites that Changed the World
  著名的发明家 Marconi(马可尼)曾经说过:“ 昨天的不可能,成为今天的可能;前个世纪的幻想,今天已成为真实摆在我们的眼前。令人惊讶的是人类努力的伟大。”
  1991年,美国正式将互联网技术由军用转为民用,由此引发了全球互联网热潮,人类生活也开始了天翻地覆的变化。15年后的今天,我们通过网络购买书籍、订购折扣机票、写博客、下载音乐和电影,做着世界上最自然的事情。
  为了庆祝互联网迈入第15个年头,英国《观察家报》评选出了最有影响力的15个网站。这些网站不但影响了整个互联网世界,也彻底改变了人们的生活。
  ——Tracy
  
  We buy books from 1)Amazon, airline tickets from 2)Easyjet, tickets for theatres and cinemas online. We check definitions and spellings in online dictionaries, look up stuff in 3)Wikipedia. You can buy and sell just about anything 4)excluding body parts on 5)eBay.
  All this we now take for granted. Back to what the world was like 15 years ago, Amazon was a large river in South America. 6)Yahoo was a term from 7)Gulliver’s Travels. A 8)googol was a very large number.
  On 6 August, 1991, Tim Berners Lee9)conceived a system for turning the internet into a publishing medium. This year the web is 15 years old and in that short time it has 10)revolutionized the way we live. To celebrate the 15th 11)anniversary of the web we’ve assembled a list of the 15 most influential websites to date.
  
  1. www.eBay.com
  Founded: Pierre Omidyar, 1995, US
  Users: 168 million
  What is it: 12)Auction and shopping site
  You cannot buy fireworks, guns, 13)franking machines, animals or lock-picking devices on eBay, the internet’s premier auction site, but almost everything else is OK. Many people even have abandoned their jobs to work on eBay full time.
  
  2. www.wikipedia.com
  Founded: Jimmy Wales, 2001, US
  Users: 912,000 visits per day
  What is it: Free online 14)encyclopedia
  Wikipedia was a free online encyclopaedia and differed from its 15)predecessors in one fundamental regard: it was open to everyone to read, and also to edit. If you had something to add, the Wiki 16)template made this easy.
  
  3. www.napster.com
  Founded: Shawn Fanning, 1999, US
  Users: 500,000 paying 17)subscribers
  What is it: File sharing site
  Shawn Fanning created Napster in 1999 as a means of sharing music files with his fellow students. Its popularity reached a peak in 2000 with over 70 million registered users before Fanning’s company was forced to pay millions of dollars in backdated 18)royalties.
  
  4. www.youtube.com
  Founded: Chad Hurley, Steve Chen and Jawed Karim, 2005, US
  Users: 100 million clips watched a day
  What is it: Video sharing site
  In late 2004 when Chad Hurley and Steve Chen began to figure out an easy way to upload and share funny videos they’d taken at a dinner party, they had no idea just how huge an impact their creation would make. Now YouTube has become one of the most popular sites on the net, claiming that100 million clips are watched every day.
  
  5. www.blogger.com
  Founded: Evan Williams, 1999, US
  Users: 18.5 million unique visitors
  What is it: Weblog publishing system
  “The funny thing was I actually hesitated before working on Blogger because I didn’t see the commercial applications,” says Williams. “We didn’t see how this little 19)hobbyist activity was going to make anyone money.”
  There is no accurate count of the number of blogs in existence now. There are millions. One is created every minute.
  
  6. www.friendsreunited.com
  Founded: Steve and Julie Pankhurst, 1999, UK
  Users: 15 million
  What is it: School reunion site
  While Julie Pankhurst was pregnant, she became 20)obsessed with finding out what her old friends had been up to since they left school. Her husband Steve, a computer programmer, had been 21)brainstorming for an original internet-based idea. “In the end,” says Steve. “I designed friendsreunited just to shut her up.”
  
  7. www.drudgereport.com
  Founded: Matt Drudge, 1994, US
  Users: 8-10 million page views per day
  What is it: News site
  In1998 Matt Drudge was the first to break the news of the 22)Monica Lewinsky scandal. It received an estimated 3.5 billion hits in the last 12 months. What began as a gossipy email newsletter has, since its first post in 1994, developed into one of the most powerful media outlets in American politics.
  
  8. www.myspace.com
  Founded: Tom Anderson and Chris DeWolfe, 2003, US
  Users: 100 million
  What is it: Social networking site
  When business-school 23)alumnus Chris DeWolfe set up the social networking site MySpace with his partner, Tom Anderson, three years ago, there was little indication that the one-stop online friend-making shop would soon boast 100 million members and more page visits in Britain than the BBC.
  
  9. www.amazon.com
  Founded: Jeff Bezos,1994, US
  Users: More than 35 million customers in over 250 countries
  What is it: Online retailer, primarily of books, CDs and DVDs
  The earth’s biggest bookstore was originally called Cadabra, but Jeff Bezos thought again after his lawyer misheard it as “24)cadaver”.
  
  10. www.slashdot.org
  Founded: Rob Malda, 1997, US
  Users: 5.5 million per month
  What is it: Technology news website and internet forum
  “I’m just a 25)geek that likes to 26)poke around with hardware,” says Rob Malda. His site, Slashdot.org, hosts news and discussion for techies and is one of the most visited websites in the world.
  
  11. www.salon.com
  Founded: David Talbot, 1995, US
  Users: Between 2.5 and 3.5 million unique visitors per month
  What is it: Online magazine and media company
  Talbot believes that online journalism came of age with the death of Princess Diana and the Lewinsky scandal. Salon’s Table Talk forum established a new relationship between a news outfit and its audience, letting readers write themselves into the story.
  
  12. www.craigslist.org
  Founded: Craig Newmark, 1995, US
  Users: 4 billion page views per month
  What is it: A centralised network of online urban communities, featuring free classified advertisements and forums
  Craigslist is pretty much simply a free noticeboard. But its 27)astonishing popularity has given it immense power. Want to rent an apartment? Sell a car? Find a job?Craiglist will provide the answers. For free. It has revolutionized urban living in America.
  
  13. www.google.com
  Founded: Larry Page and Sergey Brin, 1998, US
  Users: A billion search requests per day
  What is it: Search engine and media corporation
  Its name is listed as a verb in the Oxford English Dictionary. It commands the largest internet search engine in the world. It is the fastest-growing company in history and its founders are worth almost $13 billioneach.
  
  14. www.yahoo.com
  Founded: David Filo and JerryYang, 1994, US
  Users: 400 million
  What is it: Internet 28)portal and media corporation
  It receives an average of 3.4bn page hits a day, making it the single most visited website on the internet. Yahoo—an 29)acronym for “Yet Another 30)Hierarchical 31)Officious 32)Oracle” branched out into email, instant messaging, news, gaming, online shopping and an array of other services.
  
  15. www.easyjet.com
  Founded: Stelios Haji-Ioannou, 1995, UK
  Users: 30 million passengers last year
  What is it: Budget airline
  EasyJet was the first low-cost British airline and, 33)presciently, the first to start taking bookings over the internet.
  
  我们在亚马逊网站购书,在易航网上订机票,在线预定戏票和电影票。我们利用在线词典查证字词的解释和拼写,在维基百科里查找资料。你甚至可以在易趣网上买卖任何东西,除开人体器官。
  
  所有这些我们都习以为常了。但是回溯到15年前,亚马逊只是南美洲一条宽阔的河流。雅虎只是《格列佛游记》里的一个野蛮部落的名字。谷歌(google)的原词googol只代表一个巨大的数字——10100。
  
  1991年8月6日,提姆·伯纳斯·李构思了一种系统,能够让因特网转型成为一种出版媒介。截止到今年,网络已经走过了15年的历程,在这短短的岁月中,网络在我们生活的方方面面都引发了不小的变革。为了纪念网络这15年的历程,我们特意列出这15年以来影响深远的15个网站。
  
  1 www.eBay.com
  (易趣网)
  创立:皮埃尔·奥米迪亚,1995年,美国
  用户:1.68亿
  关键词:在线拍卖和购物
  
  除了烟花、枪支、邮资机、动物以及开锁装置以外,你几乎可以在易趣网——这个最大的拍卖网站上买到任何想买的东西。许多人甚至放弃了原有的工作,转而选择在这个网上大卖场开店创业。
  
  2www.wikipedia.com
  (维基百科)
  创立:吉米·威尔士,2001年,美国
  用户:每天访问人次为91.2万
  关键词:免费在线百科全书
  
  维基百科是一本免费的在线百科全书。与之前的那些在线百科全书相比,它有个与众不同之处:它向所有网民开放,每个人既可以做读者,又可以当编辑。如果你想补充点什么,维基百科的模板会让过程变得轻而易举。
  
  3www.napster.com
  (纳帕斯特网)
  创立:肖恩·范宁,1999年,美国
  用户:50万名付费用户
  关键词:文件共享网站
  
  1999年肖恩·范宁创建纳帕斯特网站的初衷是为了与同学分享音乐。2000年,这个网站的注册用户超过7000万,达到颠峰时期。不过在此之后,范宁的公司不得不为以往使用过的音乐支付数百万美元的版权费用。
  
  4www.youtube.com
  (视频网)
  创立:扎德·赫尔利、史蒂夫·陈和乔德·卡瑞姆,2005年,美国
  用户:每天1亿人次观看视频
  关键词:视频共享网站
  
  2004年底,当扎德·赫尔利和史蒂夫·陈开始想出创建一个简便的方法来上传、分享一次晚餐聚会的录像时,绝对没想到当初这个奇思妙想会产生如此巨大的影响力。现在,这个视频网站已成为了网络上最受欢迎的网站之一,每天都有大约1亿人次的观看量。
  
  5www.blogger.com
  (博客网)
  创立:埃文·威廉斯,1999年,美国
  用户:1850万访客
  关键词:博客(编者注:博客是一种集个人媒体、个人网络导航以及个人搜索引擎于一体的个人网络交流平台)
  
  “有趣的是,当初创建博客网之前,我其实是很犹豫的。因为我看不到任何商业价值。” 埃文·威廉斯说道,“我们觉得这个小小的个人嗜好是不可能让任何人赚钱的。”
  至今为止,博客的具体数目仍无从查知。上百万的博客存在着。一分钟就有一个博客诞生。
  
  6www.friendsreunited.com
  (友聚网)
  创立:史蒂夫和朱莉·潘克赫斯特夫妇,1999年,英国
  用户:1500万
  关键词:校友录
  
  当朱莉·潘克赫斯特怀有身孕时,她变得很想念老朋友,很想知道她们毕业以后的近况。于是她的丈夫史蒂夫,一位电脑程序员,绞尽脑汁希望想出一个以互联网为基础的独特方法。“最后,”史蒂夫说,“我设计出了友聚网,纯粹是为了让她停止唠叨。”
  
  7www.drudgereport.com
  (德拉吉报道网)
  创立:马特·德拉吉,1994年,美国
  用户:每天800万到1000万页次的浏览量
  关键词:新闻网站
  
  1998年,马特·德拉吉在个人网站上独家爆出克林顿与莫尼卡·莱温斯基的性丑闻事件。在过去的一年里,该网站的点击率达到了35亿次。德拉吉报道网建于1994年,从最初的一个讲八卦的新闻电邮组发展成了今天美国最强大的政治媒体之一。   
  8 www.myspace.com
  (我的空间)
  创立:汤姆·安德森、克瑞斯·迪沃尔夫,2003年,美国
  用户:1亿
  关键词:社交网络
  
  三年前,当商学院的毕业生克瑞斯·迪沃尔夫与合伙人汤姆·安德森创立社交网站——“我的空间”时,没人想到这个一站式在线交友网站会迅速拥有一亿用户,在英国,这个网站的访问量比BBC的还多。
  
  9 www.amazon.com
  (亚马逊书店)
  创立:杰弗·比索斯,1994年,美国
  用户:超过250个国家的3500多万用户
  关键词:网上零售商,主要商品为书籍、CD和DVD
  
  这个全球最大的书店起初被叫做“Cadabra”,但当杰弗·比索斯的律师误听成“尸体”(cadaver)这个词的发音后,他重新考虑了这个网站的命名。
  
  10 www.slashdot.org
  (科技网)
  创立:罗伯·马拉达,1997年,美国
  用户:每月550万用户
  关键词:科技新闻网站和网上论坛
  
  “我只是一个喜欢研究电脑硬件的奇客罢了!”罗伯·马拉达如此评价自己。他所创立的科技网站是一个向技术人员提供各种科技新闻和讨论的网站,如今是全球访问量最大的网站之一。
  
  11 www.salon.com
   (沙龙网)
  创立:大卫·塔尔博特,1995年,美国
  用户:每月250万至350万访客
  关键词:在线杂志和媒体公司
  
  塔尔博特认为正是黛安娜王妃的去世和莱温斯基性丑闻的曝光催生了网络媒体。沙龙网站上的“餐桌谈话”论坛建立了读者和媒体的一种新关系,鼓励读者把自己的观点融入新闻事件中。
  
  12 www.craigslist.org
   (克雷格列表网站)
  创立:克雷格·纽马克,1995年,美国
  用户:每月40亿页次浏览量
  关键词:一个集中的在线城市社区网络,主要提供免费的分类广告和论坛
  
  克雷格列表网站基本上只是一块免费的公告牌。然而这个网站拥有超高的人气,这给了它巨大的影响力。你想要租公寓?要卖汽车?要找份工作?你只要登录克雷格列表网站,就能获得答案。所有服务都是免费的。这个网站改变了美国的城市生活。
  
  13 www.google.com
   (谷歌)
  创立:拉里·佩吉、赛吉·布林,1998年,美国
  用户:每天10亿个搜索请求
  关键词:搜索引擎和媒体公司
  
  在牛津英语词典里“google”可以作动词使用,意思是“搜索”。谷歌经营着全球最大的网络搜索引擎。同时这个公司也是历史上发展最快的公司,公司各位创始人的人均财产都接近130亿美元。
  
  14 www.yahoo.com
   (雅虎网)
  创立:大卫·菲勒、杨致远,1994年,美国
  用户:4亿
  关键词:门户网站和媒体公司
  
  雅虎的日均网页点击数有34亿次,这使它成为了网络世界里访问量最大的网站。Yahoo是“Yet Another Hierarchical Officious Oracle”的首字母缩写。现在雅虎的业务扩展到了电子邮件、即时通讯、新闻、游戏、在线购物以及一系列其他服务。
  
  15 www.easyjet.com
   (易航网)
  创立:斯蒂里奥斯·哈吉-艾奥诺,1995年,英国
  用户:去年乘客3000万人次
  关键词:廉价航空
  易航网是英国第一家廉价航空公司,它颇有先见之明,率先开设了网络预订机票的服务。
  


  


  

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