25 years of the interweb

It was 25 years ago last week that the first dot com was registered (Symbolics.com).

Do you remember when there used to be magazines that summarised all the websites out there for you?

Well now there are some 84 million domain names, including 11.9 million e-commerce and business sites, with the ‘interweb thingy’ now estimated to be worth $1.64 trillion annually. Yep – annually.

Meanwhile the numbers behind Google’s buyout of YouTube have been revealed as part of the copyright lawsuit brought by Viacom. The YouTube founders received quite stunning amounts: Chad Hurley got $364 million, and Steve Chen $328 million. But poor Jawed Karim left YT before the sale, so got ‘just’ $72 million. He must have felt a bit like the 4th Beatle…

But the big winner was the joint venture capitalist Sequoia Capital who, for their $9.8 million investment, pocketed a cool $516 million.

And then there’s that other internet phenomenon Facebook. In USA Facebook has passed even Google as the most visited website. Together those two sites now equate to 14% of all web traffic in the US.

And now Google is making a play for your TV screen. Now that’s gotta make Rupert Murdoch nervous…