" Larry cites CEO Eric Schmidt's academic background and the academic orgins of the Internet (by which he means it's an open collaboration, not a vendor relationship.) The cool thing about the Web when it launched, he says, was that there was no real barrier to putting things online, "so people put up all sorts of crap.

ENGADGET: Backstage at the Google press conference

Yet its rapid uptake since 1994, when access to the Internet first spread beyond China's elite academic and scientific circles, suggests demand will be huge.

ECONOMIST: China and the Internet

As a skeleton key for the Internet, Google in five years has grown from an academic exercise in search of better ways of finding stuff on the Web into a prodigious advertising business beloved by users, sought by a hundred thousand advertisers, coveted by Wall Street and envied--or reviled--by a swarm of rivals.

FORBES: All Eyes on Google

And there are plenty of other great sources of educational videos, e-books, learning games, academic papers and other resources available to anyone with an Internet connection.

FORBES: It's Time For Technology To Disrupt Education

This theme, while at first glance appearing overly academic, is crucially important and is actually evolving on the Internet.

FORBES: New Cybersecurity Focus For Federal R&D Group

As a result, people are increasingly looking to other sources of information for the straight story about what's going on, such as academic experts or even their peers through social media and the Internet.

NPR: Public Trust In Government, Business Leaders Falls

The debate was sparked by the suicide in January of Aaron Swartz, a 26-year-old Internet activist who was found dead in his Brooklyn apartment as he awaited trial on allegations that he illegally downloaded millions of academic articles and helped post millions of court documents on the Internet.

WSJ: Social media editor in court on hacking charges

Or look at Google: Larry Page and Sergey Brin came up with their famous search algorithm by applying the ranking method used for academic articles (more citations equals more influence) to the sprawl of the Internet.

WSJ: Jonah Lehrer on How to Be Creative