阅读理解

　　GOOGLE(www．google．com)is a daily miracle to millions of people．If the Internet had only this very fast search engine, it would have justified its existence many times over．It is the most popular search engine on the web with a 54％ market share, ahead of Yahoo! You type almost anything, however unclear, into the space provided and in a second it has come up with hundreds of references．If knowledge is power, then Google commands the gateway．

　　YAHOO(www．yahoo．com)was the first wonder of the web, and in many respects, it still is．It started in January 1994 when two California graduate students, Jerry Yang and David Filo, started compiling(编译)a database of links, mainly for their personal use．But well before the end of the year, it had become recognizable as Yahoo we know today．In the past seven years, Yahoo had grown rapidly, partly through a long string of buys．Yahoo now offers almost everything you could want：emails, instant messages, chats, clubs, photo albums and a lot more．

　　eBAY(www．ebay．com), which deals with online trading and shopping services, is the most impressive large Internet company where people buy and sell goods and services worldwide．It has, for instance, opened up a global marketplace in which people from Beijing, San Francisco, or Moscow can bid(投标)against each other for products put up for sale by someone in London．The company's online service permits sellers to list items for sale，buyers to bid on items of interest, and eBay users to browse(浏览)through listed items that is available online seven days a week．

　　Amazon(www．amazon．com)started out as an online bookstore, constantly putting up new book titles it offered for sale．In the late 1990s, Amazon had more than four million titles after adding CDs, videos, DVDs and games．It continued to add new lines of business including toys, computer software, electronics, like MP3 players, power tools, home improvement products and online sales．For regular users, Amazon has made itself the shortest possible path between wanting and buying．

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