You Never Heard of the Webbys?

That's okay, not too many people have. And those in the know don't seem to give them much street cred. But I digress... Their list of 10 Web Moments That Changed the World is interesting as a retrospective, and inspired me to think about what I'd put on such a list. Here's the list, with some of my own commentary:

1. The Dotcom Boom and Bust (1995-2001)

   To start the list with a "moment" that spans SEVEN YEARS seems to set the tone that this should be taken with a certain amount of whimsy.

2. The Drudge Report Breaks Lewinsky Scandal (1998)

   The advent of citizen journalism is a big deal. I fully agree with this pick.

3. Amazon's Jeff Bezos Named Time's Man of the Year (December 1999)

   I personally wouldn't have given the nod to Bezos as Man of the Year. Why not choose July 1995 when Amazon first opened?

4. Elections Worldwide (2004)

   Another moment that spans over a year... I remember following the 2000 elections and results very closely online.

5. September 11th (2001)

6. Asian Tsunami (2005)

   I'd say this speaks more about the ubiquity of cell phones and digital cameras than of the Internet.

7. Napster Shut Down (July 2001)

   Hmmm. Rather than its demise, I'd say the advent of Napster and all the peer-to-peer activity that it spawned is much more significant.

8. Live 8 on AOL (July 2005)

   Live 8? What's that, a new vegetable beverage?

9. Match.com Booms (2002)
   
10. SARS Virus Discovered Online (2003)

    Yes, but the World Wide Web was designed thirteen years earlier for this very purpose -- to help scientists collaborate and share information. So this doesn't strike me as such a big deal.

What's Missing From the List?

I mentioned a few above, and to those I would add the following as noteworthy milestones in the development of the Web that have impacted the world in a major way: