If you're looking for a new pair of shoes that won't squeeze your wide feet, a search engine can help, but a post on your Facebook wall will result in faster responses from your most trusted critics--your friends.

FORBES: Time

Connecting more people to the Web world-wide creates more potential users of its Web-search engine and other services such as YouTube and its Google Play media and app store.

WSJ: Google to Fund, Develop Wireless Networks in Emerging Markets

He also wrote about software agents that go out into the network and come back with any information you want. (Sound a little like a search engine?) Bear and Benford also created fictional global networks long before the World Wide Web was a gleam in the eye of its creator Tim Berners Lee.

FORBES: Inventing The Future