The Ten Most Influential Internet Moments of the Decade

David Heath
Thursday, 19 November 2009 13:49

Your IT - Home IT

Earlier today, the organisers of the Webby Awards announced their selection of the most influential moments on the Internet in the past decade.

In a mix of technological, political and commercial events, the Top Ten Moments of the Decade makes for an interesting snapshot of the period 2000 - 2009.

Almost always, the events chosen were enablers of future products, future trends, future means of sharing our lives.

In an apparent attempt to avoid prioritising the events, they are presented on the site in strict chronological order.

The year 2000 is represented by two events:

Craigslist expands outside San Francisco
This was the chill wind that blew down the spine of newspaper publishers everywhere.  Instantly-available free classified advertising did horrible things to the cash-cow that was newspaper classified advertising.  The repercussions are still being felt.

The launch of Google AdWords
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.

There were also two significant events in 2001:

Wikipedia launches
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
The demise of Napster was the epitome of "Le Roi est mort, vive le Roi" ("the King is dead, long live the King").  Despite the success of music copyright holders managing to shut Napster down, the only outcome was that dozens of similar, more effective systems sprang into the gap.

Read on for the remainder of the chosen events.