Top six sites on the web

1.Google:It has all the answers!

The World Cup is over but the amazing Google doodles of that period
remain fresh in mind. Google doodles are those changes made to the
Google logo in celebration of holidays, anniversaries, events and the
lives of famous artists, pioneers and scientists who have helped shape
history. As expected, on the global top list is google.com. Google's
ownership is the famous story of Larry Page and Sergey Brin, who
started to organise information and make it globally useful. They met
while at Stanford University trying to bag a Ph.D. The company is
based in California, USA and after 16 years of operation, it's the
world's number one search engine with several other products and
acquisitions it has made over the years.
Android's continued development is one of the businesses of Google. It
would certainly seek to play more roles in our lives in the coming
years. Expectedly, Google has good presence in Africa, a continent
where the market is still young and the potential for expansion is
good. It has a little over 50,000 staff globally.

2. Facebook:All the faces in one book!

Also based in California, Facebook is ranked number two on alexa.com.
The platform which clocked 10 this year has seen a rapid expansion and
it still has Mark Zukerberg playing the role of the Chief Executive
Officer. Unlike Google, its own start-up story is linked to Harvard
University where the idea was first mooted. Simple to use, Facebook
allows people to connect with one another after a profile has been
created and then images, updates, messages and videos can be shared.
With a population of users almost equal the population of India.
Facebook is the most successful of social networking sites of all
time. Originally launched as thefacebook.com, Facebook continues to
grow daily and its incursion into mobile online messaging, following
its recent acquisition of Whatsapp, hints at the chances that it would
be around for a long time. Its daily activities are dependent on the
about 6,800 employees in the company's fold.

3.Youtube:Get in the tube yourself!

Until YouTube came, it was a big deal to produce and broadcast video
content. Acquired by Google in 2006, YouTube was created by three
workmates at paypal.com. YouTube brought liberty to video content
sharing. Its initial use was by individuals, but seeing what is
possible on the platform now, there is no news station worth its
onions that is not on YouTube.
On YouTube, it is safe to say there is a video about everything under
the sun. YouTube videos can be embedded on any webpage as is seen on
most websites. The company has a culture of releasing an April fool
prank every April 1st and it has done that for seven years now.
Revenues for the site, just like others, are also through advertising
with registered uploaders taking 55 per cent of the revenue. YouTube
is currently censored in a number of countries and is known to
experience heavy censorship during uprisings, given its role at making
audio-visual information readily available.

4.Yahoo:Yet another hierarchical officious oracle!

One of the earliest providers of free email services, Yahoo has been
around for 20 years now and it is also based in California. With about
12,000 employees, Yahoo, which was founded by Jerry Yang and David
Filo, was meant to be a web directory of sort. Its acronym 'Yet
Another Hierarchical Officious Oracle' is a clear indication. At the
turn of the decade, Yahoo was the first site website Internet users
learnt to visit. A multilingual interface, Yahoo still retains its
directory service. It also has a search engine component, Yahoo news,
groups, answers and a number of other services. The story of the
Internet cannot be complete without a mention of Yahoo.

5. Baidu:The Google of China!

China remains the world's most populated country with its about 1.35
billion citizens. Baidu is a Chinese language search engine. Based in
Beijing, it is the only foreign web platform on the list of top five
on alexa ranking. Now in its 14th year, Baidu offers multimedia
content and also has huge compatibility for searches from mobile
devices. Baidu has about 34,000 employees and competes with a number
of other platforms; prominent among them are Yahoo! China, Microsoft's
Bing and Google Hong Kong. It is thought to be in collaboration with
the Chinese government to ensure censorship. Baidu Japan is also used
by a sizeable number of people in Japan. Baidu encyclopedia is reputed
to be China's largest encyclopedia given its web traffic.

Alexa.com