“I fear the day technology will surpass our human interaction. The world will have a generation of idiots.”
– Albert Einstein
The quote is often linked to Albert Einstein. Einstein did say, “It has become appallingly clear that our technology has surpassed our humanity,” when he was questioned about the atomic bomb. (source: 2010, The Ultimate Quotable Einstein, Edited by Alice Calaprice, Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey. (Verified on paper)
Friendster in 2004, as captured by the Internet Archive. Screenshot: Wired
What kills a social network? A group of internet archeologists have picked over the digital bones of Friendster — the pioneering social networking site that drowned in Facebook’s wake — and we now have a clearer picture of its epic collapse.
Friendster was once the hottest thing in social networking. Google wanted to buy it for $30 million back in 2003, but — burdened by technical glitches and a more nimble competitor in Facebook — it was pretty much dead in the U.S. by 2006. That said, it trudged along for a few more years, helped by a relatively strong following in southeast Asia. Then, around 2009, a site redesign crushed it.
Yesterday, Google launched an interactive site that explains the life cycle of a Google search query, from crawling to algorithmic ranking to combating spam.
