The True Story of the Internet- People Part 4

Web 2.0 is all about user-created content and distributing that content on an equal platform for everyone to use. Youtube, co-founded by Chad Hurley, is platform for people to share videos. Digg is a social news site, created by Kevin Rose and Jay Adelson, that lets users decide what new stories make it to the front page. These are both sites founded on the principles of Web 2.0. Likely better known than either of these sites is Facebook, founded by Mark Zuckerberg, which connects users that create profiles to represent themselves on this social network.

The mp3 file format is a compressed audio file that allowed for music to be played and shared on computers in a size that was easier to share while not diminishing the sound quality too much. This innovation allowed music to become much more accessible to average person and allowed them to only take the songs that they wanted as opposed to buying a record full of songs that they may have only enjoyed one of. With this increased access to music through mp3’s and the music industry’s stance against officially the distribution of music online, music piracy gained rapid popularity on the internet. Peer to peer file sharing sites like Napster and limewire became extremely popular as young people across the U.S. sought out free music. Inadvertently Napster became one of the first Web 2.0 sites with users sharing and learning about other user’s interests. Napster’s popularity brought to the forefront the problem of media piracy that could threaten the whole entertainment industry that had largely ignored the internet as a means of distribution. All this negative attention brought on lawsuits from the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and popular artists like Metallica. These lawsuits resulted in Napster’s shut down.

With the increase of these populist Web 2.0 sites, social media services began to rise, with websites like myspace, twitter, and digg gaining large userbases. Sites like myspace were sold for millions of dollars and when one site would lose popularity another was sure to take its place with explosive force. Hence, Facebook, still today one of the internet’s most popular social media sites.

Disclaimer:

This is a summary of a video written by an inept college student and is subject to change and/or being completely wrong.