The Best of the Web 2009

Protesting websites' message clicked with users

(NEWSER) - Yesterday, we witnessed the power of the Internet to influence policy, as countless websites went dark to protest SOPA and PIPA. It did the job: Congress faced an onslaught of complaints about the controversial online piracy measures—which were born of traditional lobbying and heavy corporate spending, writes James Temple in the San Francisco Chronicle . When even some of the bill's GOP backers backed away in the online maelstrom, we saw "a fundamental shift in the legislative landscape, a flexing of a newfound and untraditional source of political power in the Internet sector." More»

Natalie Portman steals top spot from Johnny Depp this year

(NEWSER) - When you want to ogle an actor, the Internet Movie Database is a reasonable destination. So which 10 celebs racked up the most IMDb profile page views in 2011? The top spot now belongs to Natalie Portman , who snagged the crown from Johnny Depp (now No. 3, he's been No. 1 for six out of the last seven years). IMDb's managing editor certainly isn't shocked at the new queen bee: Natalie "won a Best Actress Oscar for Black Swan, was in the news welcoming a son into the world in June, and appeared in three films." Mashable reports on the rest of the top 10:

2. Mila Kunis : another Black Swan star

'Red Social' launches a year after Cuban Wikipedia clone

(NEWSER) - Cuba has introduced its very own Facebook-style social network called Red Social. The website appears to be sponsored by the communist nation's Ministry of Education, reports USA Today . Red Social imitates both the look and feel of Facebook, and its homepage features the slogan "A virtual meeting point for Cuban universities." The new social network arrives a year after Cuba launched its own Wikipedia, EcuRed, but it is only available from within the country. The domain name is facebook.ismm.edu.cu. More»

Old news clip goes viral

(NEWSER) - To be fair, it could've just as easily been Better Than Ezra that would go on to change the world. A clip of MTV News from 1995 in which Kurt Loder investigates the influence of the fledgling internet went viral this week, notes the Huffington Post . In the piece, Dave Matthews tells Loder the new technology was "a little weird," and David Bowie said that he "got so tired of the rubbish" on the world wide web that he stopped using it. It brings to mind the Katie Couric-Bryant Gumbel video that recently surfaced. More»

Tim Berners-Lee blasts those chipping away at its 'egalitarian principles'

(NEWSER) - Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the British engineer credited with inventing the World Wide Web, has a message for us: Social networking sites, app developers, and other entities, if left unchecked, will ruin his creation—which now belongs to all of us. "The web evolved into a powerful, ubiquitous tool because it was built on egalitarian principles," he writes in Scientific American , but "some of its most successful inhabitants have begun to chip away at its principles." His complaints:

• Social networking sites: They are "walling off information posted by their users from the rest of the Web," making each site "a closed silo of content, and one that does not give you full control over your information in it."
• Smartphone apps: "It is better to build a Web app that will also run on smartphone browsers," rather than a "closed" smartphone app, he writes, adding that he is especially wary of the iTunes store, which is not an "open marketplace."