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Watch the Funny Kittens!
Daniel Lyons 7/9/2009 12:00:00 AM
Most great tech companies start out with one great idea, and for Google it was figuring out how to make money off the work of others. Google doesn't publish any books or magazines or newspapers. It doesn't employ writers. Yet Google probably makes more money off the printed word than anyone else on the planet. (It might make more than everyone else combined.) Three years ago, Google set out to bring that freeloading business model to the world of video, when it spent $1.65 billion to acquire YouTube, which was then an 18-month-old video-sharing site that was losing money like crazy.
The Censors Right Here at Home
Christopher Werth 5/16/2009 12:00:00 AM
Internet censorship used to be pretty easy to spot. When China blocks YouTube or prohibits anything on the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre, it's not hard to figure out what's going on. But as governments and commercial firms get savvier about the Internet, censorship is getting more subtle. A slow Web site could be an accidental glitch or something more intentional.
All the President’s Tweets
N’Gai Croal 2/3/2009 12:00:00 AM
During the 2008 presidential race, one of the oft-cited feathers in the Obama campaign's cap was its Internet arm. From his unexpected win at the Iowa caucuses to his unprecedented field operation, the heart of the new president's machine was MyBarackObama.com. The brainchild of Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes, the site allowed Obama supporters to register for information updates, plan events, become part of local groups, sign in at the site's virtual phone bank to make canvassing calls, and create individual fundraising pages. On top of that, his team took full advantage of existing social networking tools: Facebook, YouTube, Twitter. By the time Election Day rolled around, more than a million people had signed up at MyBarackObama.com, and nearly half of the record-breaking contributions to the campaign were donated in discrete amounts of $200 or less.
TECHTONIC SHIFTS
A Song For the Web
Sophie Grove 1/3/2009 12:00:00 AM
YouTube is better known for its viral spoofs and witty amateur skits than serious downloads. And doesn't Google know it. Since it bought the video platform in 2006 for $1.6 billion, the Internet Goliath has been busy trying to turn the anarchic ecosystem it bought into a mainstream video distributor without sacrificing its user-generated appeal. To this end, Google has inked content deals with Universal Music, Sony, the BBC, BMG, CBS and even a project with the World Economic Forum. Its latest initiative to add seriousness to YouTube goes as far from a dog-on-a-skateboard clip as it gets. The "YouTube Symphony Orchestra" pairs the site with the world's most venerable classical-music institutions in a sort of worldwide talent show. The project will bring classical music to a new generation through one of its own portals.
GLOBAL POWER ELITE
The Web Masters
Barrett Sheridan 12/22/2008 12:00:00 AM
Think of 2008 as the year the Internet got greedy. As the recession goes digital, it's no longer enough to have an easy-to-use social-networking site, or blog software that corners the market on 13-year-olds. Now, companies like Facebook and Twitter are betting their futures on the proposition that it's time to become a hub, a place from which all other Internet activities stem. In creating our list of the men and women leading the Web, we looked to those who've courted customers and held on: Hulu.com is keeping viewers glued to television without the TV set. Facebook's new Connect platform lets users monitor what their friends are doing online. InterActiveCorp (IAC) is defining what it means to invest and succeed online; the Daily Beast, Tina Brown's news aggregator, is a favorite of journalists and bloggers alike. Meanwhile, former IAC execs are climbing the Washington ranks. Here's who succeeded the most:
ONLINE
Ms. Popularity
Barrett Sheridan 12/10/2008 12:00:00 AM
Google serves up several billion search queries every single day, giving it incredible insight into what people are thinking and talking about. On Wednesday, the Internet giant released its year-end Zeitgeist report, which lists the most popular search terms of 2008 by country and topic. It also calculates the fastest risers and queries that have catapulted in popularity within the last year. Here's a rundown of the most interesting insights from this year's report.