史上影响力最大的15个网站

到今年12月20日，网络（曾用名“万维网”）就满27岁了。27年前的12月20日，英国工程师、科学家蒂姆·伯纳斯-李在瑞士欧洲核子研究委员会的一台NeXT电脑上建立了世界上第一个网站，从此拉开了互联网时代的大幕。

该网站的建立在当时并不是什么大事件，它只是用几句话说明了万维网这个概念，但它首次提出了一些对于互联网发展十分重要的指导原则，这些原则直至今天仍有重要意义。比如超链接的概念，它不仅重新将文档定义为非线性文本，最终还几乎重新定义了任何形式的媒体。再比如浏览器，它只是一个兼容了通用格式标准的软件，却能让任何人在全球任何角落阅读网站上的内容。

自此之后，万维网进入了飞速发展时期。到90年代中叶，所谓的VRML，也就是虚拟现实建模语言掀起了万维网的另一场巨变。Adobe公司的Shockwave和Flash媒体播放器也成了冉冉升起的互联网新宠。在那个时候，有谁能想到，曾被微软（IE浏览器）和网景（Navigator浏览器）等公司垄断一时的浏览器市场会迅速分化，而谷歌（Chrome浏览器）这种后起之秀会崛起成为一方霸主呢？

以下是《时代》评选的史上最有影响力的15个网站以及他们的上榜原因。

15. Match.com  

很多80后、90后都把世纪之交的这几年看作一个年龄的分水岭，由此界定出了“前互联网时代”和“互联网时代”。当然，作为一个美国人，如果你用过Match.com这个相亲网站约过妹子，也是一件暴露年龄的事儿。这个网站大概是1995年前后创办的，不过其前身在1993年就上线了。一开始它只是一个为报纸推广在线分类广告的网站，不过后来它很快转变了发展方向，开始根据兴趣爱好帮人推荐对象。到现在为止，这个堪称一切相亲网站鼻祖的网站已经进入了25个国家，拥有了数千万用户。

14. Reddit

自从互联网被发明出来，在线论坛这种东西差不多就存在了。所以说Reddit与拨号上网时代的讨论版也没有什么本质的区别。不过2005年创办的Reddit还融合了社交新闻功能，所以它是一个既有新闻又有社交的网站。这种将有趣的热门话题与在线社区合二为一的理念受到了网友的广泛欢迎，目前Reddit已经有了数亿用户，每年的新闻点击量以数百亿计。因此，Reddit也颇为自信地给自己打出了“互联网的头版”的标语。

13. Pandora

在互联网发展的早期阶段，MP3.com等网站一度掀起了音乐分享的浪潮，最终以iTunes和Spotify等数字平台的出现达到顶峰。然而Pandora的出现却表明，音乐也可是可以按照人的品味来推荐的。Pandora创办于2000年，只要用户在播放器里播放了他们知道的或是某些风格的音乐，网站就会根据这些歌曲的共性特征，继续推荐用户可能感兴趣的音乐。用户可以向网站推荐的音乐给一个“赞”或“踩”，从而“训练”网站进一步了解自己的偏好。现在这种机制已经无处不在了，无论是亚马逊的“新品推荐”，还是苹果iTunes的“For You”精品内容推荐，全都使用了这种机制。

12.维基解密

由于维基解密在2016年美国大选中扮演了不容小觑的角色，人们还一度将这个网站与“五角大楼文件”事件（指70年代有人将大量五角大楼关于越战的机密文件泄露给媒体，揭露了越战真相，加剧了美国的反战浪潮）进行对比，从而围绕大规模泄露是否应该而产生了激烈的争论。维基解密是2006年由澳大利亚籍激进人士朱利安·阿桑奇创办的，它为人们泄露国家和机构的敏感信息提供了一个平台。最让维基解密名声大噪的，是它曾多次泄露关于美国军事行动、外交行动以及集中营的机密信息，另外它也曾多次力挺过美国国安局的泄密者斯诺登。2016年，维基解密公然介入了美国总统大选，泄露了多封民主党高层的往来邮件，使其深陷政治漩涡中，据称这些邮件是由俄罗斯特工提供的。

11.海盗湾

开放性平台天生就容易招来争议，容易成为一些团体挑战文化和法律规则的舞台。在本世纪前几年，Napster等网站也曾因为能下载非法音乐而火热一时，然而海盗湾（The Pirate Bay）才是非法下载的王者。海盗湾是由三个瑞典人于2003年创办的，它公然喊出了“信息就是渴望自由”这样的反知识产权口号，并且提供他人创建的内容的种子和链接，使用户可以下载电影、音乐、电子书等等，赤裸裸地视有关法律法规如无物。虽然这个网站在全世界都惹了雪片似的官司，域名也多次遭到查封，甚至屡次受到刑事调查，但不知怎的，这个网站居然在这样严酷的打击下坚强地活了下来，成了P2P文件共享界的一个神话。

10. Info.cern.ch

这个网站是由“万维网之父”蒂姆·伯纳斯-李于1989年在瑞士的欧洲核子研究委员会创建的。以现在的眼光看，这个网站当然不会给人任何惊艳之感。但作为万维网的原型，它的影响力是勿庸置疑的。它就是燎原的星星之火。这个网站直至今日还可以访问，它为万维网制定的一些规则已经渗入到了当代网站的DNA里，比如超链接、网站地图、“关于我们”和联系信息等等。三十年过去了，网站设计的视听元素已经有了翻天覆地的变化，但伯纳斯-李关于“网站应该是什么”的基本思考，直至今日仍然具有重要的指导意义。

9. eBay

虽然亚马逊才是当今全球最大的电商网站，但最早让买家和卖家在网上做生意这个概念火起来的却是eBay。eBay创办于1995年，它起初是一个拍卖网站，然而它不仅靠销售二手商品赚了钱，更重要的是永远改变了世界的发展方向。eBay也为后来的Etsy（一家允许任何人销售手工艺品的网站，用户也可以在该网站上经营一个小店）等网商奠定了基础。虽然亚马逊可能是你买卫生纸、日用品和小礼品的地方，但如果你想找一些上档次或者稀罕的东西，比如限量版的运动鞋或者是脱销的iPhone等等，人们还是会去eBay。

8.德拉吉报告

马特·德拉吉创办的“德拉吉报告”（Drudge Report）网站之所以走红，是因为它最早曝光了克林顿与莱温斯基的性丑闻。不过这个网站极少自己生产新闻，它更像是一个美国保守派媒体的新闻大杂烩，它的文章基本上都是从网络上转载的，然后重新安上一个意识形态意味很浓的标题（但却让人很难不去点击）。这几年，德拉吉报告爱搞“标题党”、不重视网页设计的毛病仍然没有什么改观，堪称是拨号上网时代的活化石，但这个网站直至今日在华盛顿仍然很有影响力（而且有很多读者），很多政商大佬都是它的读者。

7.雅虎

很多年前，当“谷歌”还没有成为一个动词的时候，曾经有一个大名鼎鼎的网站叫雅虎。在那个互联网混乱式增长的年代，为了梳理一团乱麻似的网上内容，雅虎曾经扮演了一个网站黄页的角色，用人工编辑对新闻和网站进行分类收录。不过随着谷歌的相关性搜索算法成为主流，雅虎也渐渐靠边站了。虽然现在雅虎已经没什么存在感了，但雅虎的核心理念——帮助互联网用户透过互联网的种种杂音，找到自己想要的东西，却依然是网络信息分类的核心要义。

6. Craigslist

早在你能用智能手机各种约、上Trulia找房源、上Indeed找兼职之前，Craigslist网站就已经诞生了。这个网站直到2017年仍然是房产交易和求职招聘的热门网站，它的月活跃用户达6000万人以上。Craigslist创办于1995年，它起初是一个刊登旧金山的各种活动的电邮列表，后来其创始人克雷格·纽马克把它做成了一个分类广告网站和在线论坛。这个网站的影响力已经不仅仅局限于网络了，很多人认为，报纸行业之所以日薄西山，与在线广告抢走了报刊广告的大量财源有很大关系。

5.YouTube

以事后诸葛亮的角度看，在网上看视频简直是一件天经地义的事——电脑显示器就是一个小号的电视嘛！不过YouTube的诞生却宣告了人人都能成为一个视频网红。就像早期的博客平台使人人都成了当代鲁迅一样，YouTube（以及后来的Instagram和Snapchat）也让每个有智能手机的人都能成为视频内容的出版商。这一点带来的影响是难以估量的，当然这也是柄双刃剑：一方面，人们的娱乐生活更丰富了，我们也更容易学到新技能，或是与远方的朋友保持联系；另一方面，它也滋生了大量的低俗谩骂和仇视煽动的视频。目前YouTube仍在想方设法解决这种问题。

4. Facebook

这个网站是CEO马克·扎克伯格于21世纪头几年创立的，一开始他只想在网上给哈佛的同学做个同学录，没想到它竟然成了全球最大的社交网络。Facebook目前的月活跃用户已经超过了20亿，远远超过了微信的9.68亿、Instagram的7亿和Twitter的3.28亿。现在，Facebook已经不仅仅是一个与亲友联系的媒介，更成了一个新闻与宣传的平台。当然，有的时候宣传写得越来越像新闻了，你很难分得清谁是谁。最近，Facebook宣布将大力整治“假新闻”，并表示正在优化网站程序，以减少虚假信息和“标题党”的传播。

3.维基百科

你的高中老师和大学教授或许告诉过你，不要什么事都相信维基百科。然而自从2001年创办以来，维基百科的成功显然是勿庸置疑的。凭借500万个英文词目，维基百科已经成为当之无愧的互联网百科全书。不过维基百科的开放性虽然造就了它的成功，却也是它最大的问题所在。由于任何网民都可以编辑维基百科的条目，因此这个平台很容易受到偏见的影响，有时其信息甚至是完全错误的。但这并未阻碍维基百科的流行，据亚马逊的分析网站Alexa统计，维基百科已经成为全球流量第五大的网站。

2.亚马逊

2017年的亚马逊已经成为一家零售和科技巨头，从沙拉酱到服务器空间，没有它不卖的。不过起初它只是一家不起眼的在线书店，但它为此后的所有电商铺平了道路。虽然像“开网店”和“购物车”这种概念并不是亚马逊首创，然而在那个很多消费者不敢将信用卡号输入浏览器的时代，却是亚马逊推动电商成为了主流。目前，亚马逊的销售流水已经占到了美国零售业总体销售额的5%,随着传统零售业的销售收入不断萎缩，这一份额预计还将继续上涨。

1.谷歌

自从1998年创立以来，“Google”这个词已经成了我们的口头禅，它甚至作为一个英文的及物动词被收入了《韦氏词典》。这个词已经成了搜索引擎的同义词——现在你很少会说“在网上查一下”，而是会说“Google一下”。据调查机构Net Market Share统计，谷歌也是网络上最流行的搜索工具，占据了移动端的97%和PC端的79%的搜索引擎使用率。 （财富中文网）

译者：贾政景

本文原载于《时代》杂志。

The web, or “world wide web” as we used to say, turns 27 years old on December 20. On that date, nearly three decades ago, British engineer and scientist Tim Berners-Lee launched the world’s first website, running on a NeXT computer at CERN (the European Organization for Nuclear Research) in Switzerland.

The website wasn’t much at the time, just a few sentences organized into topic areas that laid out the arguments for the concept. But it established vital first principles still essential to the web as it exists today: the notion of hyperlinks that reimagined documents (and eventually any form of media) as nonlinear texts, and the ability for anyone, anywhere in the world, to peruse that content by way of a browser: a piece of software that cohered to universal formatting standards.

It’s been a wild ride since. In the mid-1990s VRML (or as it was then known, Virtual Reality Markup Language) seemed on the verge of transforming the web. Adobe’s Shockwave and Flash media players were at one point multimedia stars in the ascendant. Who could have known in those early days, that by 2017, a landscape once loomed over by companies like Microsoft (Internet Explorer) and Netscape (Navigator) would fractionalize and give way to totally new players like Google (Chrome)?

Here’s TIME’s collection of the 15 websites that most influenced the medium, and why.

15.Match.com

Emerging generations may someday look back at the late 20th and early 21st centuries as a kind of dividing line: before and after the Internet, and before and after we scrutinized potential dates with a service like Match.com. The latter’s been around since 1995, an online dating service whose inception in 1993 was originally to distribute online classified ads for newspapers. But that quickly shifted to helping people make screened and interests-matched interpersonal connections, culminating in a service that today operates in 25 countries and boasts tens of millions of members.

14.Reddit

Online forums have been around since the Internet’s inception, so in that sense, Reddit’s just the modern face of what began as dial-up discussion boards. But Reddit, which arrived in 2005, also folds in social news curation, making it a combination story-and-reaction hub. That notion of melding interesting, obscure or hot button topics with fan communities has proven so popular that it’s lured hundreds of millions of users who generate tens of billions of page views annually, giving rise to a site slogan that plausibly reads “The front page of the internet.”

13.Pandora

Early Internet sites like MP3.com kicked off a music-sharing wave that’s culminated in digital platforms like iTunes and Spotify, but Pandora exemplifies the notion of online streamed tunes with recommendations delivered to taste. Launched in 2000, Pandora let users play songs they knew or from genre categories in a browser, then followed with suggested songs based on shared traits. Users could give each selection a thumbs up or down, “training” the service to cater to their preferences. You can see elements of that process in everything from Amazon’s “New For You” product recommendations, to Apple’s “For You” iTunes content curation tab.

12. WikiLeaks

A site once contrasted with The Pentagon Papers for its subversive “document dumps” of classified information has in the wake of the 2016 election become a battleground for debate about the role of mass scale whistleblowing and propaganda. Established in 2006 by Australian activist Julian Assange as a means to anonymously divulge sensitive information about countries and institutions, Wikileaks was best known for its revelations about U.S. military operations, diplomatic activities, detention camps and abetting of NSA leaker Edward Snowden — until 2016, when the site involved itself in the U.S. presidential election by releasing troves of Democratic party emails allegedly supplied by Russian operatives.

11. The Pirate Bay

Open platforms invite controversy by their nature, giving voice to groups who want to challenge cultural or legal principles. Sites like Napster kickstarted illicit music-sharing in the early 2000s, but The Pirate Bay, launched by a trio of Swedes in 2003, exemplifies the anti-copyright argument that “information wants to be free.” The site indexes content hosted by others, providing links that its users can use to download movies, music, books and more — often in flagrant violation of information-sharing laws. Though hounded across the globe by lawsuits, domain seizures and criminal investigations, the site somehow persists and remains a flashpoint for debate over the virtues and perils of peer-to-peer file sharing.

10．Info.cern.ch

Created by “father of the web” Tim Berners-Lee in 1989 at the CERN research center in Switzerland, info.cern.ch isn’t much to look at today. But the archetype for anything is influential by default, and that’s certainly true of this, the spark for every website that followed. Still viewable today, the site spotlights features in the DNA of every modern website, including hyperlinks, a site map, an About-style page and contact information. We’ve made order of magnitude changes to the audiovisual aspects of web design since, but Berners-Lee’s basic thoughts on what a website should be still resonate nearly 30 years later.

9.eBay

Amazon may run the world’s biggest online store today, but credit eBay for popularizing the idea of an open marketplace for buyers and sellers. eBay, which began life in 1995 as AuctionWeb, forever altered the way the world passed along and monetized used goods. And it paved the way for modern e-tailers like Etsy, which lets anyone sell their crafts or run a small business online. Amazon may be where we turn for paper towels, groceries and last minute holiday gifts, but it’s still eBay people scan to find vintage or scarce items, from rare pairs of sneakers to sold out iPhones.

8. Drudge Report

Matt Drudge’s eponymous “Report” is most famous for breaking the Monica Lewinsky story, but the site rarely posts news of its own. Instead, it serves as a conservative-leaning news aggregator, pointing to articles from across the web and putting an ideologically-spun (and irresistibly clicky) headline on them. Drudge’s barebones web design has changed little over the years, serving as a sort of living memorial to the days of dial-up Internet. But the site remains massively influential (and massively read) in Washington, D.C., influencing the agenda of Beltway movers and shakers.

7. Yahoo

Years before “Google” became a verb, there was Yahoo. An early effort to bring order to the chaos of the Internet, Yahoo served as a sort of Yellow Pages for the web, with human editors selecting links to news stories and other sites. Google’s relevance-based search algorithms eventually resonated more strongly with users, plunging Yahoo toward irrelevance as its raison d’être dwindled. But Yahoo’s core idea — that something should help Internet users cut through all the noise to find a bit of signal — remains an essential tenet of online information curation.

6.Craigslist

Long before finding a date by swiping your smartphone, browsing apartments on Trulia, or searching for part-time work through Indeed, there was Craigslist. The site remains a popular destination for real estate and job listings in 2017, with more than 60 million monthly U.S. users. Craigslist started as an emailed list of San Francisco-based events in 1995, which founder Craig Newmark expanded into a classified ads site and online forum. Its influences extend beyond the web, too: many attribute a significant part of the newspaper industry’s decline to the shift from print ads to online ones.

5.YouTube

In retrospect, watching videos on the Internet seems obvious — monitors are basically tiny flatscreen TVs, after all. But it took YouTube to show the world that anyone could be a video star. Just as early blogging platforms made everyone a critic, YouTube (followed by Instagram and Snapchat) turned anyone with a smartphone into a video publisher. The impact has been immeasurable, both for better and worse: YouTube makes it easy to entertain ourselves, learn new skills or keep in touch with far-flung friends. But it can also be a haven for invective and hate speech, a problem the Alphabet-owned site continues to grapple with.

4.Facebook

A website founded by CEO Mark Zuckerberg in the early 2000s as a way to profile Harvard classmates has become the world’s largest social network. More than two billion users frequent the platform monthly, eclipsing alternate platforms like Tencent’s WeChat (968 million), Instagram (700 million) and Twitter (328 million). But the site has also evolved from a way to stay in touch with friends and relatives, to a medium through which both news and propaganda flow freely, mingling in ways that often make it difficult to tell one from the other. Facebook has pledged to do battle with so-called “fake news,” and says it’s refining the site’s processes to mitigate the spread of misinformation as well as clickbait.

3. Wikipedia

While your high school teachers and college professors may have taught you to doubt Wikipedia’s reliability, its rise to prominence since launching in 2001 is undeniable. With five million English entries, Wikipedia has become the de facto Internet encyclopedia. That said, Wikipedia’s openness — arguably what’s fueled its omnipresence — is also its biggest handicap. Since Wikipedia articles can be edited by anyone with Internet access, the platform is susceptible to bias or outright inaccuracy. But that hasn’t hindered its popularity: according to Amazon’s analytics site Alexa, it’s the fifth most trafficked website globally.

2. Amazon

Amazon in 2017 is a retail and technology behemoth, selling everything from salad dressing to server space. But it began as a humble online bookseller, paving the way for all the e-commerce sites that followed. The company may not have pioneered concepts like browsing a digital “store” or filling up an online “shopping cart,” but the site helped e-tail break into the mainstream, and at a time when many consumers weren’t comfortable plugging credit card numbers into browsers. Amazon accounts for just 5% of U.S. retail sales today, but its market share is expected to surge as traditional players’ revenue dwindles.

1. Google

Since its arrival in 1998, Google has become so ingrained in our vernacular that Merriam Webster added it to the dictionary as a transitive verb. The multinational tech firm has become synonymous with the notion of researching anything — you don’t “look something up online,” you “Google” it. And it remains the web’s most pervasive search tool, accounting for 97% of the mobile search engine market and 79% of desktop search engine use, according to recent data from Net Market Share.

This article originally appeared on Time.