By Ben Salter
In a few short hours it’ll be 2010, and we’ll be waving goodbye to the decade that was the 2000s or the Naughties as it came to be known. Technology has changed a great deal in that time. Videogames developed a long way, texting, social networking and the iPod all came along and changed how we interact with each other and experience entertainment.
Facebook
Believe it or not but the three major social networking sites have all played a different role in our lives during the 2000s. Facebook may well and truly be the most popular now, but it was not always that way. Once upon a time it was for Harvard students to keep in contact, and now is used by over 300 million people. Facebook is great for keeping in contact with old school and work mates, but it’s also used as a day-to-day communication tool and for its events system. Gone are the days of hand mailing invites, simply make it on Facebook!
iPod
We’re really talking MP3 players in general here, but the iPod has run away with the title. In fact I’m sure there’re thousands of users out there that aren’t even aware that there are competing devices. The iPod launched in 2001 with 5GB of memory capable of storing 1000 songs. It is now in its 6th generation and holds up to 160GB of music and video.
Twitter
Launching in 2006 Twitter is the fun-sized social networking site. Each “tweet” allows only 140 characters. Users can follow anybody and re-tweet status, as a result it has become popular with fans to follow celebrity movements and for websites to promote their content.
MySpace
Launching in 2003 MySpace is largely credited as the social networking site that started the mass appeal. Nowadays it’s often considered to be dead by many Facebook adopters. However, it’s still largely popular with independent bands getting their music out there.
Texting & language
SMS has been around in concept since the mid-80s but didn’t break out into the mainstream until the late 90s. Even then it was considered an extra and nobody could predict the dominance it would have in the mobile phone market. It broke out further in the Naughties with the development of MMS and became the most used form of data communication on the planet. It’s also been apart of many scandals in the 2000s. It’s too damn easy to accidentally send a text to the wrong person!
The txt talk language was developed in the 2000s, and is the reason most of our youth can no longer write a coherent sentence. Im g8 kkthnxbai!
The Wii
Say what you want about the Wii, but it’s done more for the expansion of gaming than almost anything before it. After its release in 2006 nobody saw Nintendo’s dominance coming. They’ve managed to get millions of people playing games who may have loathed the concept before at the expense of their loyal fans in some regards. While there has still be some great games for us it’s fair to say there hasn’t been as many. Was it worth it?
The Xbox 360
While online gaming was around on consoles last generation Microsoft changed the way we play online with Xbox Live. Sure it costs money, but it set the path that PSN has tried to follow and continues to rival PC gaming for the best quality online.
The PlayStation 3 & Blu-Ray
Blu-Ray probably won because of the PS3. It ended up with a commanding lead over HD-DVD, but the PS3’s ability to play the next generation movie format went along way to helping it win the format war. It’s also considerably slowed piracy on the platform while Nintendo and Microsoft struggle.
Wikipedia
Until it was outlawed by schools it was the number one location for assignment research. A user-contributed encyclopaedia was a stroke of genius and Web.20 at its finest. It’s a fantastic source when you want to know random information, and don’t need it to have the accuracy of a scholarly article, like when you want to know how old Matt Damon is. He’s 39 for those of you playing at home.
YouTube
YouTube was created in 2005 and sold off to Google for a record USD 1.6 Billion in 2006. Not bad for a year’s work. It’s gone on to be a Web 2.0 sensation as web users around the world have been sharing their videos. It’s been great for fun, serious short films and sending messages back to the media and the government.
Digital Distribution
While it’s still coming for Australia in a lot of ways, it’s far more successful overseas. The CD is a dying breed and you’ll struggle to find a single on sale in a store, due to the success of iTunes and other online music stores. Movies on demand are slowly making their way into Aussie homes, but it feels a few years off before it’ll catch up to the same level as music.
Reality TV
As we leave the 2000s reality TV is thankfully dying off, but it has been in full force during the past ten years. While we may loathe them now Australians used to love the likes of Big Brother and Australian Idol.
The let me Google that for you culture
Google has been around since 1998, but the idea of “let me google that for you” has come about in the Naughties. Whenever you or a friend is unsure about something we head straight to Google.
Apps
The iPhone has had a lot to do with the idea of apps (applications). The idea is that mini-programs can be uploaded to an existing device, such as an iPhone, for a very small cost or often free. The inspirations are endless and there’s almost an iPhone app for everything these days.
Digital Cameras
Remember the days of taking your film to be developed, and even storing them in the fridge to prolong their life if you didn’t have time? These days everyone has a digital camera, or at the very least a camera on their phone. Facebook and sites like Photobucket come into the mix as digital photo albums. The physical album may be long gone, but now hundreds of your friends can see your pictures online instantly. Kids, here a hot tip: Don’t add add your parents on Facebook if you don’t want them to know what you get up to on the weekends.
That’s just a handful of ways that technicality has changed us in the past decade. Social networking and texting has changed how we communicate while advances in the Internet has made life so much faster that it was last decade.
Tags:
2000s
360
apps
blu-ray
camera
decade
Facebook
google
ICC
myspace
ps3
technology
TV
Twitter
wii
Wikipedia
xbox
youtube
Submitted by ICC_06
31/12/2009
43
Join MyPSP to vote for your favourite story!