Who dominates the Internet?

The entire internet is run by only a few giants. We will understand this fact when we just analyze what we are doing online. The entire web is considered the storage of information. Who are the driving forces behind these? Who gives us access to them all? The major force behind the web is Google. Google has dominated the internet than anybody else. The Google search box is what a user believes in more than anything. To visit a website, to get the meaning of a word, to buy a book, to download a software, music, games, and access anything on the internet Google is the most trusted source. Google is the starting point of search for millions of users. Everybody comes only second to it.

Google is the search power that dominates the web world. There are many other companies who want to snatch this from Google. They have tried a lot and lot and are still trying to match the services offered by Google. The companies that got effected by Google are mostly Yahoo! and Microsoft. Yahoo has become a unstable company because of Google! Yahoo started well as a directory search engine, drives millions of users to its website, became the most popular company on the internet, and somehow has lost its focus now, because of Google. The magical power of pagerank has sinked the giant into a black hole. The other company that is trying to keep up with Google is Microsoft. Microsoft is now miles away from Google. They are not in a situation to do any miracles online. They have created some great softwares for PCs, but online applications from Microsoft has not tasted success since the emergence of Google. They have provided lot of services, but with less creativity and the result is that either they are short lived or are not purposeful.
Microsoft has not studied the online world like PCs. They still did not understand the fact that more than brain power they need more creativity to attract users to their services. That is the reason why even many other small online applications become a success Microsoft fails. Twitter is a online tweeting. The site is simple and the idea is creative and purposeful. Twitter is now one of the most powerful messaging services now. Millions of users now access Twitter to share their tweets with friends and the world. Twitter is an example of how a simple and useful idea can take the world by storm. Microsoft fails to understand this fact.

Rapidshare is a gaint file hosting service. The service that rules the web next to Google is, Rapidshare. Rapidshare is the house of millions of files. Rapidshare is mainly user powered, even if users have to pay for hosting and sharing their files. Rapishare has enough power to retain its position as the #1 destination for downloading softwares, games, books, movies, music, DVDs, and CDs. You can find almost evey digital good you want in Rapidshare. Rapidshare is one of the high traffic sites in the world. Millions of people share and download files from Rapidshare everyday. Even if it is a payed service they allow limited downloading for free and also offers free accounts from time to time so that users will get a chance to join their service for free. There are many other file hosting services like Megaupload, but they still are not able to reach where Rapidshare is now. Undoubtfully, the service that offers users everything they need and the major force that make people beleive the web is still a free country is Rapidshare.

Youtube is a free video sharing website. YouTube has a very powerful video streaming technology that allow millions of online users with a medium broadband connection to enjoy music, movies, and tutorial videos online. Youtube has become the major player in online video sharing only within a few years. Now when we say video sharing online it is Youtube. Youtube allows users to upload videos  and share them with the world for free. Youtube is owned by Google now and is undoubtedly the best video sharing site online. You can find videos about anything and everything in Youtube. There are no barriers, you can share videos in any language, based on anything, and as a result Youtube has millions of videos from around the world. The success of Youtube is based on the fact that it is also user-driven with millions of users uploading their videos and millions of users visiting it, Youtube is clearly second to none in case of popularity and is also a prime force ruling the web.

Wikipedia is the ultimate destination for your queries. If you have a doubt in your mind about anything instead of looking in Britanicca encyclopedia, you can look in Wikipedia, the largest user contributed, and the worlds largest encyclopedia in the world. Wikipedia is where you can quench you thirst for knowledge. It has answers for everything you want to know about the world, people, science, technology, sports, arts , culture, and so on. The articles in Wikipedia are written by its users. They are all free and you can also contribute the Wikipedia and become a writer for an encyclopedia. You can also edit what others write if you find some mistake. Wikipedia also offers thousands of books for free from its another venture Wiki Books. As time passes Wiki Books will be your ultimate destination for textbooks and study materials. Moreover, Wikipedia is a great reference material with millions of articles and answers for your questions. Clearly, Wikipedia is where your voyage for knowledge may start or end. Wikipedia has pioneered the information revolution in the web and is also a front-runner that shrinks the web to few sites.

E-bay is the most prominent auction site in the world. It has everything you want to bid on from pearls to airplanes. E-bay is something that monetized the web like no other. It made the web a bidding platform. It offers powerful tools for users to take part and manage bids. It has dominated the web like no other e-commerce company has done before. It started the wave of e-commerce on the internet. It unleashed the greatest potential of the web and make it a money-spinner. E-bay now is the largest auction platform on the earth. E-bay is powered by its great technology and infrastructure that is unmatched. It provides users a unique place to sell, bid, and buy anything they like. E-bay is also a website with purpose and great vision that enchanted web users and attracted users to it like a honeypot and is clearly a driving force on the internet.

Amazon is the biggest bookseller in the world. It is where you can find any book you want to buy on the earth. Amazon has a great respiratory of not only books but also electronic goods, toys, games, home appliances, and lot more. It is one of the biggest online store in the world. Millions of users visit Amazon to buy books and other goods. It is one of the most trusted stores online. The success of Amazon attributes to the fact that it was started with great vision and supported by great technology and affiliate network. It is where millions of users search and buy goods online everyday. It has become the trusted source for buying and selling goods online and has won the hearts of millions of users. Amazon clearly is a traffic snatcher on the internet.

Blogging is a great opportunity for millions of people to share what they know. Blogs are different from many other services. It offers users with their own web logs to write content. Any body can start a web log. WordPress and Blogger are two giants in the world of blogging. These two blogging platforms host millions of blogs. Blogs are hot bed of activities. It is where millions of users with vast range of taste blogs about anything and everything like. Blogs are high traffic generating, rich information based service on the internet. WordPress is a huge user pulling blogging platform highly SEO optimized and attracts millions of users everyday. Blogger also offers free blogging service and there are millions of blogs at blogger. Blog search engines alone underlines the vast information that spread around millions of blogs. Technorati and Google Blog search are some of the popular blog search engines. WordPress and Blogger blogs definitely share among themselves millions of users everyday and they are definitely are rulers of the web.

The web is a huge community and generally there are lot of people who are searching the web to find information about something. The potential of the web is immense and then one feature that unleashed another great potential of the web is social community website. Community websites changed the web into a more familiar territory and played a major role in drawing millions of users to the web even if they did not have any particular interest in surfing the web or technology. This is because community sites allowed people to connect with their loved ones, those who are miles away from them, who were old friends of them. It allowed them to share their ideas, thoughts, images, videos, tastes, and interests with others and make friends with them. This has made the web unique again and with community websites like Facebook became the part of a common mans daily living. Community websites made web more closer to life. These websites knowingly or unknowingly offered millions of users a space for themseleves in the online world. Facebook as mentioned above is one of the pioneers in community powered websites. These websites have a very different structure, instead of sharing information users are allowed to share anything from their thoughts, writings, images, or videos. It has no restrictions on what to share, discuss or write. It is where you can indulge and immerse in a social world. Facebook is the most popular community website now and is attracting millions of users all around the world. Few other community sites like myspace and orkut, are also attracting millions of users and clearly they are the crowd pullers and the rulers of the web.

Photobucket is a photosharing website. Photobucket is where millions of users upload and share their photos online everyday. Photobucket now has millions and millions of photos and is the one of the biggest photo hosting and photo sharing site in the world. The users can create a free account with Photobucket and start uploading images. They also offer premium photo sharing services. You can create image sideshows, rate photos, edit images and so on with photobucket. With millions of photos added to it and thousands of users joining it everyday, Photobucket is unarguably one of the user attracting and traffic generating site on the web. Flickr is another photo sharing site with the same reputation as Photobucket. It is governing the photo sharing online like Photobucket and offers great photo sharing for free. Flickr is owned by Yahoo and is clearly a traffic-puller.
The above are few websites I think is dominating the web like no other. I just tried to analyze the factors behind some of the traffic snatching sites in the world. I just want to know how they become giants in the world of computing. I just want to understand the factors that played a major role in their success. The thing is that it definitely is not just money alone. More than money there are few thing that make them the emperors and rulers of the web, that make them crowd-pullers. My assumptions about their success are the following things
1. Great vision
2. Novel technologies.
3. Great Ideas.
4. User generated content.
5. Vast collection of information.
6. Amazing Creativity.
7. Offer free services.
8. Understands the diverse needs of users.
9. Allows users freedom to share.
10. Quality service.
I have just mentioned my own thoughts about the web and the internet, the forces behind it. The entire information we need spreads around thousand of websites. These websites in one way or the other are the door ways for these information. That is the why they are huge success. For example Youtube allows users to embed videos and we see Youtube videos in many websites. It attributes to the success of Youtube in a great way. Flickr and Photobucket sideshows can be embedded in web pages. Blogger blogs and WordPress blogs contains vast information and they are free services. They offer services matched by any premium hosting service. So high quality service and freedom to share made above websites a great success. There are many other services like bookmarking websites that attracts millions of users. The contents in these websites are also user generated. They also have the ability to get more visitors and act as pointers to many websites and quality content. This post is just my opinion on who rules the web and this is not the ultimate list of websites ruling the web. Hope more and more web services will emerge and rule the web.