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Net Gains (Jan 01, 99) |
As is the usual practise, content based sites around the world
have spent hours browsing through the sites that were, in the
year that was, to come up with lists like "The Best Sites
of 1998", or even "Best Guilty Pleasures Site"
- I kid you not! NetGuide 99 (http://www.netguide.com/special/netguide99/home.html)
has done just that, rating 99 sites in 22 categories, ranging
from the serious to the superfluous. Be it entertainment, health,
kids, money, news or shopping, they're all there. And best still,
you too can visit these sites and vote for the site you think
is best in each category.
Not to be outdone, PC Magazine has come up with their list of
the Top 100 Web Sites of 98 (http://www.zdnet.com/pcmag/special/web100/index.html).
They too have categorised sites into 22 categories (what's with
this fixation on 22, can anyone enlighten me?). While you spend
hours browsing through and exploring each of these compilations,
you're bound to notice that Indian sites are missing from that
list. If you were given a chance, which site would you nominate
as the best Indian site you have come across? Share your opinion
and make your choice known in a matter of seconds at http://www.strategist.net/.
The 10 Stories That Shook the Net in 1998 (http://www.thestandard.net/articles/display/0,1449,2886,00.html?home.ff)
is a quick reference put together by the editors of The Standard
who believe that 1998 was the year the Internet came of age. Microsoft,
domain names, portals, Amazon, AOL buying Netscape are some of
the stories that made the list. Of course, the one story that
had to be on the list was about the Starr Report. According to
polls carried out, the Starr Report is the single document that
has attracted the single highest number of accesses ever! The
world's leading news sites had record numbers of visitors: CNN
reported that its site had broken its previous traffic record,
and peaked at 340,000 hits per minute; MSNBC calculated that it
had over 2 million unique visitors; and America Online reported
a 30 percent increase in traffic. People accessing the report
itself spent an average of 30 minutes viewing it, about 30 times
the normal one minute that the average user spends looking at
the average page, proving that sex still sells !
RealNetworks (the guys behind Real Audio and Video), recently
ran a contest online - Real Life, Real Stories, where people could
use RealVideo to capture and share a piece of their lives with
millions of other Internet users world-wide. The grand prize winner
is Brook Riddick, a sight-impaired computer programmer from Las
Vegas, who won $50,000. A day in Brook's life is being broadcast
live on the Internet today at www.real.com, so if you're one of
those Net nerds with no social life, this may be a good way to
spend your New Year's Day! What was Riddick's reaction to winning
the prize? "I think the opportunity to open doors in peoples'
minds, giving them an idea of what it's like to have a disability
is as great a reward as any prize".
And finally, since we've got an entire year ahead of us before
we enter the next century, give a thought to this: If you had
to take with you a time capsule of items from the 20th
century that you wanted to see continue into the 21st,
what would the capsule contain? Don't know where to start? Well
log onto Fifty Things (http://www.fiftythings.com), and
see what the creators of the site have considered to be the fifty
most important things that we should carry on in the next century.
Check out the list, and email them if you think there's something
else that should be up there, since the list is open to changes
every month. For instance, chocolate is prominently listed, "The
mere mention of the word chocolate can send signals to the brain
that cannot be dismissed until the addictive substance is located,
touched, smelled and tasted by its captive subject." Mmmmmmmm!
Hats off to them for making visitors sit back and think as to
what's important…Let's see, have they included the Net in
their list?
Here's wishing you a great year ahead! Happy New Year!!