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20 websites that changed the world

techradar.com — The sites that revolutionised the way we lead our lives

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  • FDisk, on 10/10/2008, -12/+127Google anyone?
    • Frost9999, on 10/10/2008, -1/+47what's the url? I'll look it up.
      • JoeCool1986, on 10/10/2008, -1/+4look it up with what?
      • coldkill3r, on 10/10/2008, -0/+12@JoeCool1986

        Ask Jeves...what else would you use?
    • smackydoodle, on 10/10/2008, -10/+7I think you're missing the point of the article. If Google was the first search engine or the first at pretty much any of the stuff they offer, maybe, but realistically they built on previous technological ideas.
      • borninda818, on 10/10/2008, -1/+3Google is the Godfather of the Internets.
    • josepablos, on 10/10/2008, -18/+7google is overrated
    • redleviathan69, on 10/10/2008, -1/+1i was just thinking that
    • j0se, on 10/10/2008, -1/+2Google pl0x
    • Easyoffbam, on 10/11/2008, -1/+1Link please.
    • crossmr, on 10/11/2008, -0/+3Just because its popular doesn't mean it changed the world. Did the google search engine really do anything that radically different from yahoo or any of the other search engines when it arrived?
    • coolcash2005, on 10/11/2008, -0/+1I dunno though, Google didn't create the search engine they just perfected it. It didn't actually change the world, they just now have an extraordinary amount of power over the web. I'd say a huge one they missed is the revolutionizing of social networking via MySpace (or Facebook, but I'm pretty sure MySpace came first).
  • jedthehumanoid, on 10/10/2008, -14/+91Yahoo was the pioneer that Google followed, which is why Yahoo is in the list and Google isn't
    • StevenBullen, on 10/10/2008, -7/+53Yeah but the title states 'websites that changed the world'.
      Google did change the world. I dont ever say I will yahoo that... Doh!
      • Vincent21212, on 10/10/2008, -8/+7How did Google change the world, or pioneer anything that has truly amazed a huge audience, that was also an original idea? All Google revolutionized was the way of web-advertising to fatten their own pockets. Just beause they got rid of all the search-engine front-page crap and left the search bar, doesn't make them that amazing. Woo-hoo. Game changers they are.

        Google does do things better, usually, but are rightly omitted from this list. Myspace, as annoying as it has become, should've been on the list.
      • PleaseJustDie, on 10/10/2008, -3/+2The next time you want to wonder how google changed the world... just go google it.
      • Vincent21212, on 10/10/2008, -3/+3Good idea. Here's Google's #1 result to "how did google change the world". Lol, it echoes what I just said!
        http://squaregalaxy.com/tech/did-google-just-chang ...

        Vincent -1. Google-polesmoking diggers who bury because they lack a sense of objectivity - 0
      • PleaseJustDie, on 10/11/2008, -2/+4*woosh*

        to google something has become vernacular, that very act means it changed the world.
      • crossmr, on 10/11/2008, -0/+2No it means it became popular...did kleenex change the world? Even though kleenex is used in place of the word tissue in many regions? No. People often replace a generic name with a popular brand name. It has nothing to do with changing the world.
    • fwertz, on 10/10/2008, -1/+6Well, then, Yahoo indirectly changed the world by having a sphere of influence on google.

      Whatever, google is still way better.
    • feenstrovski, on 10/10/2008, -4/+24However Google Is in my opinion the single website that changed the way we see the internet today. Google has become a household word which to some is synonymous to internet. If It weren't for Google my mother wouldn't use the internet.

      Gmail, Google ads , Google maps, Google Video, Pagemaker and the list goes on of things it has introduced to shape the small things we do daily.

      Yahoo was just another search engine, not to say it didn't do well.
      • Vincent21212, on 10/10/2008, -2/+1Elaborate on your mom, please.
      • RobotBuddha, on 10/10/2008, -0/+2I would have disagreed with you about google video, which has seemed a bit of a mess in terms of focus. But I think it's finally starting to shift into something useful with the search options, and the actual hosting starting to be integrated into picasa webalbums.
    • dagnew, on 10/10/2008, -1/+5Yes, Yahoo pioneered attempting to organize the web, but Google HAS organized it. Yahoo tried with rooms of people, Google used algorithms. I haven't yet looked at the list, but if G isn't on there, the article is wrong, plain and simple!
      • RipleyIsDead, on 10/11/2008, -0/+2You guys are all forgetting Alta Vista... Early on, Yahoo was a messy, messy place, while Alta Vista was basically a proto-Google.
    • saranagati, on 10/11/2008, -2/+2I think one thing google did that no one else had done yet was to allow people up to a gig of storage (for gmail) for free. Prior to that, you were really lucky to be able to store 10MB of data somewhere for free. Once gmail allowed for 1GB, everyone else started to play catch up and now its virtually unlimited storage for free.
      • crossmr, on 10/11/2008, -0/+1Great so you can keep your porn in your email. That is hardly 'changing the world'
    • lithera, on 10/12/2008, -0/+1Dugg for having slashdot on the list.
      I have yet to see a website that can deliver such quality content in both articles and comments day in day out, year after year like slashdot does.
      Sorry Digg.. you're good but no match for /.
  • voodookiss, on 10/10/2008, -4/+6Well yahoo is loosing its hold on the net...... time changes....after all everything ends.....
  • StevenBullen, on 10/10/2008, -11/+4BBC.com
    Did not change the world... but has a great impact online.
    • roxgod666, on 10/10/2008, -0/+4Too bad that's not what the list is about
    • ScaryUK, on 10/11/2008, -0/+4bbc.co.uk made a big impact... bbc.com is just a re-direct for those without the nouse to know about .co.uk!
  • wontstoptalking, on 10/10/2008, -4/+25I wish Yahoo isn't just a junkie website now. I mean, they have some good services, like Answers and all that stuff, but the actual site is no good now.


    It's a grandma site.
    • hundalz, on 10/10/2008, -0/+3Think Yahoo (and MSN) are really "portals" where they are essentially information gateways. Whereas Google's homepage is essentially focused on search. Just my 2c.
      • hopefuel, on 10/22/2008, -0/+1ahh portals - so 1999 - my excite page back then was almost as customizable as iGoogle is now....

        it was called 'sticky'
      • ankit585, on 10/11/2008, -0/+1Comparison is not correct . You should compare google.com and ysearch.com
    • bryxal, on 10/10/2008, -0/+3http://search.yahoo.com/ might be what you are looking for
    • CobaltBlue, on 10/10/2008, -0/+6I love reading questions on Yahoo Answers. The naive people thinking that they will get their three page term papers written for them for 10 worthless points is very heartwarming.
    • Kyora, on 10/11/2008, -0/+1I don't think Yahoo! Answers is as much o a useful tool as it is a source of lulz.
  • wontstoptalking, on 10/10/2008, -18/+5No Digg?

    I mean, I think we are one of the greatest (in size and awesomeness) communities online right now. And I think what we're doing (besides sitting on our asses) is actually haveing some kind of influence on the election. Or at least a little bit.
    • Abnormanomaly, on 10/10/2008, -4/+3Yeah, but slashdot was there before digg, but digg does it better for sure.
    • benologist, on 10/10/2008, -0/+8There are much bigger forums than digg, and if you think digg's having any influence on the election why isn't Ron Paul president by now?
      • waldo686, on 10/10/2008, -0/+5the election's not until november duh!
  • inajeep, on 10/10/2008, -8/+93 or 4 per page. Really? I have a hard time digging something like that anymore.
    • E3L1, on 10/10/2008, -2/+3,,,did it just re-paginate from 5 to 1 AFTER i was on page 5??
  • gentlehorizons, on 10/10/2008, -13/+1I didn't read through the whole stuff. Did you include Digg? :-)
  • motang, on 10/10/2008, -4/+37First ever website, created by internet pioneer Tim Berners-Lee.
    GeoCities
    Blogger
    Yahoo!
    The internet-connected coffee machine
    Danni's Hard Drive
    MP3.com
    eBay
    Amazon
    Boo.com
    Wikipedia
    Slashdot
    The Drudge Report
    YouTube
    Gabocorp
    Legal & General
    Hotmail
    Classmates.com
    Match.com
    HotWired
    • mywhitenoise, on 10/10/2008, -3/+22How the hell is myspace not on there?
      As much as I hate myspace you can't deny it's popularity and influence on the world.
      • evilgourmet, on 10/11/2008, -0/+3if you are thinking of social networking that changed the world, friendster or tribe were the fist to do what myspace has mastered
    • yetAnotherCroc, on 10/10/2008, -0/+5Man those were the days. My first experience with the internet was in 94. My family was the first In our circle of friends that had it at home. I never realized it but it was empty back then. Approx 100 000 sites all in all. I spent a lot of time on yahoo chat and searching for stuff on altavista. Doing any kind of fact research in my native language was doomed to failure. Online shopping was only a rumored vision for the future. Heck, frames and Java was the latest in web tech and noone had even heard of the concept of CSS yet. Then the floodgates opened, regular people came online and webcomunities started forming. It's gone downhill from there. Neverending september indeed.
      • pilot3033, on 10/10/2008, -0/+1The Never-ending September
      • TheDreadDiggerD, on 10/10/2008, -0/+1I still remember looking up info for Final Fantasy 3 on the SNES. Final Fantasy towns were awesome on the web. 1996 FTW!
  • FunyGirl, on 10/10/2008, -8/+4Great article
  • hundalz, on 10/10/2008, -2/+14Very informative article. I've used some of them over the years and yes - they were a paradigm shift in their respective sectors. Maybe craigslist should be there as well for kicking off the classifieds ?
    • PatrickFlorida, on 10/11/2008, -0/+2Good point. Craigslist's (free) advertising has made hundreds of newspapers do some heavy duty-changes.
  • MrSunshine, on 10/10/2008, -12/+3I've never heard of the following: Danni's Hard Drive, Boo.com, The Drudge Report, Gabocorp, Legal & General, Classmates.com, Match.com? And Slashdot hasn't changed much, it's mainly for nerds.
    • KevinAndAlexRoc, on 10/10/2008, -0/+0Nerds? Hang around Digg much?
  • MakiMaki, on 10/10/2008, -5/+19Dear Techrader.com, did you really have to split this article into 5 pages? You seem to needlessly divide your stories into multiple pages when they are clearly short enough to be on 1 or 2 pages.
    • vsujohn2, on 10/10/2008, -1/+6Dear most ad-revenue based internet sites....., *what MakiMaki said*
    • benologist, on 10/10/2008, -4/+4You play a significant role in making digg an aggregator for the huffington post and other trashy blogs that offer far more ads than substance, so why suddenly care about the quality of what gets front paged?
      • syxx, on 10/11/2008, -0/+1i loled :)
      • MakiMaki, on 10/12/2008, -1/+2I care about quality. If you read all the comments I've left on digg, you'll see that I've always attacked link-jacking sites/source-hoppers by the 'trashy blogs' you speak off. It's all there. Go check out what I've been saying about all the 'trashy blogs'.

        I don't submit the Huffington Post regularly, in fact far lesser than many other regular huffpo submitters. I've also criticized them on many occasions. Go dig through my comments, you'll see that I'm not lying.
    • Stavrosian, on 10/10/2008, -1/+11Er...it's on one page for me.
      • vsujohn2, on 10/10/2008, -0/+5When it first was popular it was several pages.
      • Stavrosian, on 10/11/2008, -0/+2Ah, cool. I thought I may have gone mental.
    • Hobbes24, on 10/10/2008, -0/+2...i'm getting it all on one page...
    • Easyoffbam, on 10/11/2008, -1/+1Dear Makimaki, do you really need to spam digg? You seem to needlessly spam Huffington and multiple other websites when they are clearly not Digg-worthy material.
      • MakiMaki, on 10/12/2008, -1/+2I don't 'spam' digg. Whats your beef with me, dude?

        I don't submit the Huffington Post regularly, in fact far lesser than many other regular huffpo submitters. I've also criticized huffpo on many occasions for linkjacking and I've put up links to the source or original submission instead. Go dig through my comments, you'll see that I'm not lying.

        Whether something is digg-worthy or not is highly subjective. Some people may like something, others may not. But let's not make this personal. You don't need to attack me publicly. Hell you don't even know me. Hate the stories? Just bury them. But leave me the hell alone.
  • brettalton, on 10/10/2008, -11/+6< Previous 12345 Next >

    ???

    You can go to hell you advertisement whore. Put your damn articles on ONE page.
    • jvincent08, on 10/10/2008, -0/+1I just clicked next and all of them were revealed on the same page *shrug*
  • Burns7007, on 10/10/2008, -9/+2What about Digg?
  • DJBONEZ, on 10/10/2008, -10/+6just one mans opinion. nothing here is accurate
  • Ghoztt, on 10/10/2008, -16/+184chan
    • dynelol, on 10/10/2008, -0/+19If it wasn't for 4Chan and Something Awful, there would be no memes.
      • cToyos, on 10/10/2008, -6/+1there would be memes, just from some other places
      • toxicityj, on 10/10/2008, -2/+6***** you! Two of my friends died trying to come up with a non-4chan/SA meme.
    • Changa, on 10/10/2008, -1/+2Do you like mudkips?
    • supertom, on 10/10/2008, -1/+3Oh GOD NO.
  • gasin, on 10/10/2008, -4/+8no craigslist?!!
  • jvincent08, on 10/10/2008, -6/+4No MySpace?
  • ravamp3, on 10/10/2008, -3/+2Shouldn't bolt.com be on there? Laid the ground for Facebook and Myspace...
    • duerra, on 10/10/2008, -0/+2IMHO, who popularized it is as important as who "invented" it. The truth is that the pieces where there already for most of these sites in some capacity, but it took somebody to bring them together, and somebody to popularize it.
  • Tyrghast, on 10/10/2008, -4/+1No www.veganza.org? Lame.
  • LeviTheSmith, on 10/10/2008, -0/+2What about 'social networking' sites?
    MySpace, Facebook etc
    • djdole, on 10/10/2008, -0/+3Note: "changed the world"
      MySpace is no more than a glorified Blogger/Craigslist ghetto-born bastard-child. :-p

      ...Facebook is a step up...but still hasn't made an impact...yet.
    • crossmr, on 10/11/2008, -0/+1Classmates was essentially the pioneer of that. Myspace made them free, popular and expanded it beyond finding old school mates, but the basic idea was there.
  • kkl3218, on 10/10/2008, -1/+11geocities...? really!?!
    • trafficlight, on 10/10/2008, -0/+14For me, Geocities was the most important site of all time.

      I was 13 at the time when I realized that I could make my own web pages. What an amazing revelation! My first job was helping on the local newspaper's website. So, Geocities definitely affected me directly.
    • Stavrosian, on 10/10/2008, -0/+10It was a crappy service with nowhere near enough bandwidth and ***** design (the frames. Oh god, the frames...), but the idea of free hosting of a website for anybody who wanted it was a pretty big deal. Like many pioneers, it isn't really important how well it did its job - just that it paved the way for others. The first successful attempt to give a website to the masses is worth remembering.
      • crossmr, on 10/11/2008, -0/+1iF you got into geocities when there were frames you got there late. It didn't have frames in the beginning.
    • djdole, on 10/10/2008, -0/+5Yes geocities!
      While pretty lame now, it was HUGE in the mid '90s.
      Remember, Olympic triathlon runners must first learn to walk. Same goes for technology.
    • redwallhp, on 10/11/2008, -0/+4It was big before you were born...
    • c4nn1bu5, on 10/11/2008, -0/+4Anyone else remember angelfire?
    • Kyora, on 10/11/2008, -0/+2C'mon, admit it. How many Diggers had a ***** Geocities or Angelfire website?

      Both here, at one point or another.
  • laresbernardo, on 10/10/2008, -2/+2emmm...google?? mmm facebook? myspace? eeeeeeemmm goooooooogle? where was it?
    • jvincent08, on 10/10/2008, -0/+4Yahoo was the first major search engine. Google came later.
  • leif777, on 10/10/2008, -7/+1changed the world?... these are websites... it's not like they invented penicillin
    • jvincent08, on 10/10/2008, -0/+7Right, and the Internet has had no affect on the world.
    • Stavrosian, on 10/10/2008, -0/+2You don't think the internet and the sites therein have changed the world? You must not remember much before 1995.
      • RobotBuddha, on 10/10/2008, -0/+4It might not seem that way to a lot of us, but 1995 was a pretty long time ago. I do remember the world of the late 80s, and it's amazing how things have changed. The world is so much smaller, and it's all because of the internet. I actually remember when someone had bragging rights if they were talking to someone in another country. Information exchange was incredibly slow as a result of all that. It was hard for an individual to fact check anything, and "because we said so" was about the start and end of getting news. You couldn't easily find out what reports other people were getting outside your own little community. Seriously, the internet really has changed the way society works.
    • djdole, on 10/10/2008, -0/+1You do realize that you're on Digg now, right? Without those sites you wouldn't be here to question them. And I'd say yeah they changed the world. Without the mass prorogation of information that many of those innovations helped, we wouldn't know a lot of what we do today.

      I mean, wasn't there a presidential debate last year where candidates were asked questions via YouTube!? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CNN-YouTube_President ...
      If a f'in snowman from the internet can question a congressman (and few people even flinch at concept), then the world has DEFINITELY been changed by the technology.
  • nutmac, on 10/10/2008, -3/+2Napster is an application not a website.
    • dtrocchio, on 10/10/2008, -0/+4napster wasn't a website, it was an app...
  • nealparr, on 10/10/2008, -0/+5This is bogus. No MySpace or any of its predecessors like Friendster?
    • jedthehumanoid, on 10/10/2008, -0/+2read down to number 18 and you'll get your answer...
  • zadadka, on 10/10/2008, -0/+2Here's a thought.
    If Digg's search capabilities were enhanced beyond simple boolean criteria (the dupe Submission checker being an obvious example), it too could be considered Yet Another Hierarchically Organised Oracle.
  • ahpro, on 10/10/2008, -0/+4If youtube wasn't here, we'd probably still have google video where you don't have proper accounts, the videos take a few days to get verified, there's absolutely no copyrighted content allowed and there's practically no community,
  • rodon, on 10/10/2008, -0/+32what?!?! no goatse.cx?!?!?

    That site changed the lives of millions of people, for worse.
  • duerra, on 10/10/2008, -0/+3Yeah, they made a few mistakes with this list. First, Google absolutely should have been on the list, because they completely revolutionized search as we know it. Secondly, MySpace absolutely needs to be on that list for revolutionizing social networking. Other than that, they're not terribly far off. IMHO, Yahoo should have been ranked much higher than 4th (1st or 2nd, IMHO), so I'm taking this ordering with a grain of salt.
  • MrZaiko, on 10/10/2008, -1/+17Classmates.com??? WTF
    • ShoggothDreams, on 10/10/2008, -0/+6That and others were obvious advertisers.
  • MrZaiko, on 10/10/2008, -0/+8I treated classmates.com like spam. When the internet was the world of free *****, classmates charged you $$ for getting in touch with douchebags you knew in highschool.

    and this is better than google??
  • aadsm, on 10/10/2008, -3/+2It may have changed the web, but certainly not the world. People, like nobel prizes, change the world, now... a website?
  • kushin, on 10/10/2008, -1/+2dugg for Danni's harddrive and Danni learning HTML. Bet it did change atleast a few diggers' world
  • nem3sis, on 10/10/2008, -1/+6no suprnova and thepiratebay there...?
  • starkplug, on 10/10/2008, -2/+4
    • kjcdude, on 10/11/2008, -0/+1It was listed in the excerpt under slashdot. They said it was a follower of them thus they did not give it it's own spot.
  • henrywfstone, on 10/10/2008, -3/+2GOOGLE ISNT ON THERE ???? bs
  • wopbobaloobop, on 10/10/2008, -0/+2boo.com changed the world. Who knew?
  • diggafrica, on 10/10/2008, -0/+3what about whitehouse.com ? I discovered porn on the net by visiting it... so did a whole bunch of others lol.
  • badenglishihave, on 10/10/2008, -1/+1Check out the broken link to "US Copyright Law". No wonder there are so many pirates out there today!

    http://fatty.law.cornell.edu./usr2/wwwtext/lii.tab ...

    (obtained through home page by clicking "What's out there?"->"By Subject"->"Copyright Law"
  • deanburge, on 10/10/2008, -0/+0No Bianca's Smut Shack?
    • leamanc, on 10/10/2008, -0/+2Nope, but Danni's Hard Drive is on the list. Can't say I ever visited that site...Tommy's Bookmarks and Bomis were my introduction to the pretty ladies on the www. Before that, it was newsgroups...
  • keving727, on 10/10/2008, -0/+1musically speaking..the website that had the greatest impact on music was pitchforkmedia..it's ability to take obscure acts and bring them to nationally attention is unrivaled today. If you look at any major indie act that broke in last 5 years(interpol, arcade fire, vampire weekend), they usually started with great pitchfork review.
  • collegestock, on 10/10/2008, -1/+0hah the above link to law.cornell.edu is good stuff I wish I could diiiiiggg it!
  • Bleue, on 10/10/2008, -4/+1And another list that should be titled: 'the n best x that I can think of right now.'

    so called web 2.0 is completely unrepresented, and given that most would agree that this paradigm shift in the www brought it to the masses i would call that world changing... missing from this list:

    google
    myspace
    delicious
    flickr
    pirate's bay
    mapquest
    twitter
    facebook
    digg
    and, sad to say, 4chan
    • TheDreadDiggerD, on 10/10/2008, -0/+3The phrase "web 2.0" is exactly why those aren't on the list.
    • grungefan, on 10/11/2008, -0/+1Google and Digg are on mentioned in the list, they just weren't headlined because they weren't the first popular sites of their kind.
  • dtrocchio, on 10/10/2008, -1/+2Dugg for geocities.
  • BDCforreal, on 10/10/2008, -0/+1Danni Ashe changed my penis.
  • 032483, on 10/10/2008, -0/+3Dugg for Danni Ashe.
  • hillaryj, on 10/11/2008, -3/+3no porn sites?
  • c4nn1bu5, on 10/11/2008, -0/+0That list brings me back so much. But I had a angelfire web page before I even heard of geocities. Good list tho. Its nice to take a look at the beginnings of everything on the net.
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