The New Age of the Web
by Aakash Sell and Elliot Topper
Paypal /X.com
Paypal had a competitor called X.com that was founded by Elon Musk. These two companies eventually merged to become Paypal. Paypal started growing very quickly and became profitable early on. They made money by taking a percentage of the transactions made on their platform. eBay eventually bought Paypal but Paypal’s success showed how the internet was still a very promising place for businesses.
Do you think that eBay would have been sustainable if online banking services such as Paypal weren’t around to ease the payment process? If Confinity and X.com didn’t merge, would online transactions still be as big as they are today.
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| The original PayPal logo. |
Google Ads
As Google founder Page and Brin were looking for a new way to make money, a new idea was emerging GoTo.com, visualized by Bill Gross. Its purpose was simply to allow businesses to pay for sponsored links on web searches, in which the order depended on monetary compensation to GoTo. While this technology was making its way on almost every other browser, Google knew they could do better - using their famously effective algorithms.
And so was born AdWords - Google’s in-house browser advertisement algorithm, made to one-up GoTo. It had all of the features of its rival, including an easy-to-fill-out form for businesses to use, and more. It featured a special algorithm, in which the big companies who could pay more didn’t always get on top of the pages. Along with price, the algorithm factored in relevancy, which ultimately meant the best advertisements could be placed at the top, instead of the ones that paid most. This technology proved extremely useful for Google, and many businesses piled on to AdWords over GoTo, favoring the better algorithm.
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AdWords proved extremely useful to Google,
making the company lots of money in advertisement sales.
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Why do you think businesses preferred AdWords’s algorithm based on effectiveness more than GoTo’s purely monetary one? Would it be more effective for larger companies to pay more for GoTo or to jump onto AdWords like everybody else, giving the necessity of effective ads?
Blogging
In 1994, Dave Winer started his own soapbox, DaveNet, and also created various blogging programs, which let many people start their own soapbox sites and blogs easily. His tool, as well as others like Blogger, took the blogging game to a whole new level. They paved the way for massively successful blog-style reporters like Matt Drudge with Drudge Report and Nick Denton with Gawker. These huge blogs led to a revolution in blogging.
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| The original Drudge Report Logo |
Why do you think blogging became so important to web users?
By the way, the sentence that the drudge report logo covers is "These huge blogs led to a revolution in blogging."
ReplyDeleteSorry - it didn't do that in the preview!
DeleteShould be fixed now.
DeleteI guess this was your April fools prank.
DeleteYou caught me!
DeleteI think that most companies this method because they didn't pay as much to make more of a profit than they would have using the monetary system. It would definitely make more for everyone, if companies used Google's algorithm. Regarding blogging, I think that the idea of online diary was so new and exciting that everyone just wanted to try it. It was the first you could really see into someone else's life in such a personal way.
ReplyDeletei agree it was a very new and personal way to use the web and i think people loved that
DeleteI agree that the idea of seeing into someone else's life was definitely something that interested many people. But why do you think people were so willing to share their personal lives with strangers, especially on a new platform?
DeleteI think it was the mindset of the time to be really open and transparent. Everyone felt really connected now that the whole world could use the Internet
DeleteTruth - we really didn't think through the repercussions of "putting it all out there". I think a lot of us learned through experience that giving up our privacy has a down side.
DeleteI agree with Hannah, I think blogging was very new and people felt like it was safe to tell their stories.
Deletei think that ebay would not have been so successful if it hadn't been for paypal because the web is all about ease and effectiveness in this time and if users got frustrated with ebay they would simply find another platform to use
ReplyDeleteYes, user experience was, and still is, a huge concern when it comes to the online experience. I would say that the easy methods Paypal used were a driving force behind eBay's continued success.
DeleteI personally do not think that eBay would have been sustainable without online banking services like Paypal to ease the payment process. People relied on convenience and instant gratification, and waiting for payments interrupted this inherent want that the business banked on, in terms of generating money. If Confinity and X.com hadn't merged, I don't think online banking would be as big as it is today. Confinity and X.com were able to use their joint resources to create a service that became a powerplayer because of their collaboration. Without this merger, this would not have been possible.
ReplyDeleteI agree, PayPal made the banking process a lot easier. The convenience made it much more appealing to customers.
DeleteYou make a good point that the shift changed from Get Big Fast to convenience and instant gratification. eBay's customers often came back multiple times, so they had a strong audience base, but PayPal intrigued more people to come as their service was made easier.
DeleteI agree that some customers wouldn't have been willing to stick around and use eBay if there was a tedious payment method. Paypal helped eBay grow and created a better experience for users
DeleteI think online purchases would still be successful without Paypal because I personally never use Paypal to order something online, but I think it really paved the way for digital forms of payment like Apple Pay and even Venmo that we have today. It surprises me that companies favored Adwords over GoTo because I think it would be more effective for companies who are paying the most money to ensure that they get on the top of the page, unlike with Google's platform. Blogging was also extremely important because I think it started the whole Web 2.0 concept of creating and publishing your own content rather than surfing the web.
ReplyDeleteI agree with this, I never use PayPal but I do use Apple Pay sometimes.
DeleteI completely agree that PayPal paved the way for a change in how money is dealt with in general. I have never used any online money-sending service, but I do realize that they have changed the workings of so many businesses and small contractors and workers, making paying very easy.
DeleteWhile I thought online purchases would have been difficult without PayPal, I completely agree that it paved the way for other apps. That is an interesting point that companies could be guaranteed a spot at the top of a page. I agree that blogging allowed for Web 2.0 to become a time of creating content rather than viewing it.
DeleteI think that blogging became important because it was yet another way to allow people to interact on the internet on a more personal level. Regarding PayPal, I do think that eBay would still be successful without the ease of PayPal. I think that the convenience of buying products online overrides the inconvenience of taking an extra ten seconds to type in your credit card info. I think that online transactions would still be as big as they are today without this.
ReplyDeleteI completely agree. PayPal kinda started the online money transfer industry.
DeleteI definitely think that eBay would have been in trouble without PayPal. It would be very difficult to maintain that mail-in system of payment without some kind of online transaction process the worked outside of credit. In terms of AdWords, it was monetarily more beneficial to do this and it kept users satisfied with content. I think blogging became very important to web users because it allowed for more connection online. People were able to find interesting sites with people similar to, or completely different from, themselves.
ReplyDeleteDo you think that eBay would have suffered enough that it would have had to completely shut down without PayPal?
DeleteMaybe not completely shut down but they would most likely have seen a decrease in users.
DeleteI don't think they would have needed to shut down because it seems like they had a pretty large amount of users and I'm sure that a lot of them would stick around. But I don't think it would've continued growing, and eBay wouldn't be as known as it is right now.
DeleteBlogging allowed to talk to people on a closer level. It allowed people another outlet in which people could release how they are feeling as well and then form opinions based on the blogs they read. Blogging also pushed forth the concept of the web being a place of creating and publishing personal content.
ReplyDeleteExactly. Blogging was really the first opportunity for anybody to publish on the web. Before blogging, it was kind of a closed group of techies that could produce content.
DeleteI think blogging has become so important to web users because if you have a question or need a solution for something, there's usually been someone who had the same issue before you, and decided to write a blog about it. It's a really helpful resource for all kinds of web users- even though the in depth stories that come with the info your looking for can be annoying
ReplyDeleteI think blogging was also such a crucial part of the internet's evolution into social networking and even Wikipedia because it couldn't have been possible without the collaboration used in blogging.
DeleteI'm guessing you're referring to cooking blogs that have to tell an entire story before you get the recipe you came for??? (not that I have experience with that)
DeleteCompletely agree! Blog brings so much valuable information, I can't believe I didn't think about that. I've definitely used blogs to find people's personal experience with some things and how I would be able to survive them. Though, it is true, the really long stories are quite pointless and bog down the whole purpose.
DeleteYes! Food blogs. I understand they have to add something personal to the post, and sometimes it's interesting...but most of the time when I look up "easy chocolate mug cake" I don't particularly care that the author had a craving at 3 am on a Tuesday (no offense to any food bloggers, they do a great service to the community (and me))
DeleteWithout an online banking system, eBay would not have been relevant for much longer. Users would have grown tired of manually paying instead of having the easy option of PayPal. Blogging was also important, it created a new social platform for communication, just like we are using right now.
ReplyDeleteI don't think eBay would have lasted forever without online banking services because having people mail checks was untrustworthy. I also don't think that they would have been as popular if they didn't become Confinity and X.com. They would have been major competitors and they ended up working better together. I think they preferred AdWords because you didn't just need a lot of money, you also needed a good company. Users also were more likely to click on the links because they related. It was better for companies to use AdWords because they ended up benefiting them more in the end because they'd get more business. Blogging was important because it allowed users to get content from other users and gave people a real life perspective on things.
ReplyDeleteI think that PayPal was an important factor to continue eBay's success in advancing with the technology, as it was continuing to constantly change. I think this merging was important because it naturally led itself to services today like Venmo. Companies like AdWords were beneficial because it helped smaller companies grow based on interest, not how much money was in their bank. A lot of companies were not producing large revenues but still needed to get themselves out there. I feel like companies that had a lot of money would use GoTo because it guaranteed them to be on top. But AdWords was more popular, so using that could help them too. Blogging was crucial because it made itself Web 2.0. Users were able to explore, feel more comfortable putting up their own content, and overall have a more personalized experience on the web.
ReplyDelete