The Top 5 Sites That Have Impacted The Internet The Most

As a fraud analyst, I spend a lot of time on the internet. Too much time, in fact. Add the 10+ a day at work to the leisure surfing I do at home, and I probably spend close to 100 hours a week online. So naturally, I see a lot of websites. I've come across some of the coolest things the web has to offer, and some of the sickest. And porn. Lots and lots of freakin' porn. So I got to thinking... what are the top five websites that have shaped the way we use the internet? What ones does the average person think of when they think of the internet? Well, in interest of keeping this PG-13 rated, and because this list would probably be comprised primarily of such, I'm keeping all of the aforementioned porno out of this (although that's what people normally think of when they think of the internet, right? There's even a song about it...) So, without further ado, here are the top five I believe have impacted the "Intarwebz" the most:

5. Amazon

The only locally run website on this list (as in it was started in the same state in which I live), Amazon.com was launched in 1995 as primarily an online bookstore. Since then, they have started selling just about everything useful - in fact, I normally use it to order action figures, video games, and martial arts supplies. Using a revolutionary and patented checkout system, Amazon quickly became one of the places to shop online. By 2008, the site would draw 615,000,000 visitors annually. The site's layout and shopping system would impact nearly every e-commerce site in the world wide web.

4. eBay

Whereas Amazon is more like a department store or mall, eBay is an international auction block. Nearly anything that one is looking for (with obvious exceptions), can be found at eBay at some time. Similarly, eBay acquired the online payment company PayPal in 2002, which has the most widespread use of online payment at over 170 million user accounts.


3. MySpace

As much as it pains me to say this, MySpace is indeed one of the most influential websites of today. A relative newcomer, it was founded in 2003 and bought by News Corporation (parent company of Fox Broadcasting) in 2005. The reigning king of social networking sites, I actually fail to see its draw. Many sites had the same basic features before MySpace even came around (compare Friendster's launch in 2002 and hi5's existence a few scant months before MySpace came along) - and even those didn't interest me. Nevertheless, with well over 100 million users, it has become one of the fastest growing and most popular websites on the internet, serving as a source of social interaction, marketing, and publicity.


2. YouTube

Another newcomer to the 'net, YouTube started in 2005. The site had been around only a tad over a year before being bought by Google. Allowing users to upload their own video content, YouTube offers much to the world. The site is responsible for turning everyday people into celebrities - for better or for worse. And what other site could be responsible for turning one-hit wonder 80's singer Rick Astley into a household name (and common annoyance) in the 2000's?


1. Google

Although there are/were hundreds of search engines out there, none of them have been able to dominate Google. Google is now a synonym for utilizing a search engine, a feat that even its forerunner for Search Engine God, Yahoo!, couldn't produce back in its heyday (could you imagine Yahooing something, anyway? Sounds weird). Since then, Google has started and/or purchased such endeavors as YouTube (see #2), AdWords, GMail, Google Maps, Google Earth, Chrome, Orkut, and this very blogging service.

Honorable Mention
Wikipedia, which started the craze for user interfaced encyclopedias and information.