societal influence

- based on their foundational usefulness and societal influence.

• World Wide Web: besides making the Internet easier to use, it was also free whereas Gopher would no longer be free to use.
• Java: a programming language that is both open source and non-platform specific.
• Linux: Forced Microsoft, a monopoly, to compete with a free and ever-improving operation system. Also brought awareness to the concept of open source.
• PageRank: an improved search engine algorithm based on the assumption that better quality webpages are linked to more often.

Wikis: web pages that can utilize collective intelligence by being editable from more than one terminal