A Blog About Making Culture
It's the circle of (web) life!
January 17, 2007
Picture Terry Semel holding a little lion cub up in the air with both arms extended. What's that? It's the Circle of Life! Well, maybe Circle of Life 2.0? Okay, enough Lion King -- maybe it's just Justin Timberlake again: "What Goes Around... Comes Around".
The story I'm referring to is how each half-decade's web love story begets its successor for the attention and adoration of the press, the stock market, and the public at large.
In the beginning, there was Netscape, and it was good. But the old-timers among you will recall that Netscape began as Mosaic Communications Corporation, based on the old Mosaic browser. When that name became unusable, the codename for the browser being built was naturally named after the terrible lizard that would cause Mosaic's demise: Mozilla.
Among the many kind things the Netscape kids did (giving us a free email client, open-sourcing the code once they sold out to AOL, indirectly funding a nightclub in San Francisco), they decided to feature amongst their default links an up-and-coming web directory called Yahoo! The prominence of the nascent Yahoo site on the young Netscape browser's toolbar in an era when there were so few comprehensive guides to the web helped cement the company's position in the vanguard of web companies.
Fast forward a few years, and among the many kind things the Yahoo kids did (giving us free email, hooking Flickr up to Target once they bought the photo-sharing site, enticing Scientologists to visit), they decided to feature as their default search technology an up-and-coming web search technology company called Google. The prominence of the nascent Google engine atop the maturing Yahoo site's directory in an era when search had been largely abandoned helped cement the company's position in the vanguard of web companies.
Fast forward a few years, and among the many kind things the Google kids did (giving us free email, trying to give us free WiFi in San Francisco, building the memex), they decided to feature as their preferred browser technology an up-and-coming web browser technology called Mozilla Firefox. The prominence of the nascent Firefox download amongst Google's software offerings in an era when browser development had been largely abandoned helped cement the browser's position in the vanguard of web technologies.
This concludes today's history lesson. We have provided, above, an educational infographic offering a detailed look at the flow of linky-love between these Internet behemoths.
Related reading:
- Upon the Demise of Netscape: The Google Browser
- Wired's article on how Yahoo screwed the pooch on Google
- Some love for Mitchell Baker for being so open about Mozilla's business
- The Lion King on DVD
Previously: Cranky Geeks from the Vault
Next: Looking at Video
Three-Letter Acronyms & Four-Letter Words
MicorsoftAdWords ?: Last night as I was finishing up the assembly of the CPU holder for my desk (we went to IKEA yesterday), I saw on TV something that surprised me. It was your usual sort of Internet commerce commercial. Someone was looking for something making jokes ab read more »Anil Dash
It's still a Phoenix: Before it was called Firefox, or Firebird, Mozilla’s lightweight browser was known as Phoenix. An appropriate name, given than it rose from the ashes of Netscape. Read/WriteWeb has a nice retrospective pegged to the fourth anniversary of the crea... read more »Ben D. Benner
This was good. I spent part of this morning look at another circle of, well not sure to call it life or possibly another round of telecom tyranny.
The AT&T merger stuff. The splitting up of “Ma Bell” into the Baby Bells, which resulted in them slowly merging back into AT&T.
I find it really funny that AT&T sold off their wireless business to Cingular as to ensure that the merger would be allowed with SBC. Then SBC changes their name to AT&T, then they acquire Bellsouth as to be able to change the Cingular name into AT&T.
Sorry, I know it is off topic, but it is an interesting example of it going full circle. Search YouTube for Colbert and Cingular , you will find a few clips that do a decent job of explaining the circle. (didn’t want to link directly to the video.)
Andrew
Is it still a circle of life if it only makes one cycle?
Jeremy Zawodny
That you consider The Lion King on DVD to be related reading is highly amusing to me. Well done. :-)
Dan Guy
I am surprised that you have not yet mentioned the intersection of Justin Timberlake and Prince at the Golden Globes earlier this week.
deb schultz
ROFL - thanks for that post..nuf said. i am going to put in my lion king CD now (yes, cd..;)
Post a comment