Editor’s Be aware: ZDNET’s “Expertise that Modified Us” collection was first revealed in 2018. We have up to date this installment to enhance its accuracy and make sure that it displays current expertise developments.
On this 50-year retrospective, we’re taking a look at applied sciences that had an affect on the world, paved the best way for the long run, and adjusted us, in methods good and unhealthy.
Additionally: The Nineteen Seventies | The Nineteen Eighties | The Nineteen Nineties | The 2000s | The 2010s
2000: Google AdWords
It isn’t onerous to see the affect AdWords had on the internet advertising trade, however one factor is for certain: Nothing has been the identical. AdWords took the chance out of promoting — principally.
Additionally: Google’s new gen AI instruments assist hyper-target your advert campaigns
As a substitute of shopping for an advert for a time period and paying the payment, advertisers may purchase a sure degree of efficiency by way of click-throughs. But it surely was additionally as much as the advertiser to correctly assemble their advertisements, with better-performing advertisements rising to the highest. It is a large enterprise. By the tip of 2024, Google’s advert income was greater than $200 billion.
Runners up: Microsoft C#. Oh, and we survived Y2K.
Apple iPod second technology
(Picture: Fhke on Flickr/Artistic Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license)
2001: Apple iPod
We proceed to take a look at merchandise that laid the muse for the fashionable world. Home windows XP and OS X (now MacOS) 10.0 had been each launched in 2001, and served as the muse for our present desktop working techniques.
Additionally: One of the best over-ear headphones of 2025
But it surely was the iPod that continued the tech world’s inexorable transfer to a mobile-first surroundings. There have been many MP3 gamers earlier than the iPod. Nonetheless, the iPod was launched with what was — for that point — such shockingly beneficiant storage capability that music lovers may take their total music assortment with them wherever they went.
Runners up: Macintosh OS X and Home windows XP.
2002: The Tor Undertaking
Tor, based mostly initially on an onion router venture developed for the US Navy, is designed to maintain communications safe, even at a degree that may surpass VPNs. The concept behind an onion router is that there are layers of safety (like layers in an onion) that must be peeled away to search out out a consumer’s identification. Since Tor transmits by a collection of IP addresses, the vacation spot IP handle won’t ever know the handle of the originating IP.
Additionally: Easy methods to use Tor browser (and why it’s best to)
In a world the place privateness is changing into ever harder to safe, the place governments, terrorists, and criminals are actively spying on customers in every single place, a instrument to guard privateness turns into ever extra essential. Sadly, like many applied sciences, privateness offered to the harmless can be utilized by unhealthy guys. Even so, the non-profit Tor venture exists to protect and shield identities the world over.
Tor, by itself, might not have modified the world as a lot as one thing like Android has. However Tor enabled the world changers to work safely and freely, and that is its final contribution.
One in every of Google’s first Android builds on the Sooner cellphone.
1.bp.blogspot.com
2003: Android based
Most individuals consider the Android working system as one thing Google developed, however that is not the entire story. Android was based as an organization, initially meant to construct an working system for digital cameras. At one level, the corporate was so near closing down, it could not pay its lease.
That was then. Right now, Android is probably the most profitable (by way of consumer numbers) working system in historical past. Sadly, it is also fragmented nearly past recognition, and suffers from many safety considerations and forks. Even so, Android is dominant numerically, and can doubtless stay so for years.
Runners up: iTunes on Home windows, DDR2 SDRAM, and H.264.
TheFacebook.com: This was the default homepage for customers who weren’t logged in.
(Picture: net.archive.org)
2004: Fb based
Along with Fb, the corporate Mark Zuckerberg based in 2004 as TheFacebook and now referred to as Meta owns Instagram, WhatsApp, and Fb Messenger, together with ZDNET’s 2023 Product of the 12 months, the Quest 3. Collectively this juggernaut dominates messaging and social media to a level by no means earlier than seen.
Additionally: Easy methods to shield your privateness from Fb – and what would not work
Not solely has Fb remodeled how individuals join and talk, it is also created its personal huge walled backyard, full of particulars about almost each human on the planet. The way it makes use of that knowledge, the way it manipulates that knowledge, and the way it protects that knowledge can be an issue for all of us for years to return.
Runners up: Gmail, World of Warcraft, Spirit Mars Rover, and Dr. Bob Dylan.
2005: YouTube
In 2005, it was troublesome and costly to distribute video. I did some movies for purchasers and the challenges and prices had been huge. All that modified when YouTube made web movies free for everybody.
Additionally: Easy methods to obtain YouTube movies at no cost
Customers are 27 instances (not p.c, instances!) extra more likely to click on by a video advert than by an ordinary banner. That alone ought to get your consideration.
In response to Google dad or mum Alphabet (which owns YouTube), extra 18- to 49-year-olds watch YouTube movies on cellular than they watch any broadcast community. Google says the identical demographic group dropped TV watching by 4 p.c, however in 2015, elevated YouTube watch time by 74 p.c.
Runners up: Reddit, Google Maps, and Xbox 360.
2006: Twitter (now referred to as X)
What are you able to say about Twitter in 140 characters? #TurnsOut #YouCanSayALot.
Though Twitter elevated its character rely to 280 in 2017, the micro-blogging service created a brand new method to attain an amazing variety of individuals, immediately. Maybe nothing showcases Twitter’s energy greater than Donald Trump’s preliminary rise to US President. By utilizing Twitter, Trump bypassed all of the gatekeepers and constructed his personal viewers of devoted followers.
Additionally: Easy methods to delete your X/Twitter account for good (and shield your knowledge)
In fact, Twitter’s story since that point has been its personal cleaning soap opera. Elon Musk purchased Twitter, renamed it X, then modified a lot of its insurance policies and the general taste of the service. There are nonetheless many diehard Twitter/X followers, however there’s additionally been an increase in different social networks in response to those adjustments.
Runners up: Blu-ray, AWS, PlayStation 3, Wii, WikiLeaks, and Zune (simply kidding).
2007: iPhone
The iPhone. It was rumored and anticipated for years, however when Steve Jobs lastly held it as much as present the world, the handset exceeded everybody’s expectations. Nonetheless, it wasn’t merely the iPhone that blew aside the PC, music, landline, and mobile phone markets. It was the apps, which took one other 12 months.
Additionally: I purchased an iPhone 16 for its AI options, however I have never used them even as soon as – this is why
As soon as Apple launched the App Retailer, and created a approach for customers to entry apps for a couple of dollars and the contact of a button, the final little bit of friction between digital expertise and digital expertise use was gone — and the world was without end modified.
Runners up: Kindle, Apple TV, Google Road View, and DDR3 SDRAM.
The unique website was referred to as Airbedandbreakfast.com.
Web Archive
2008: Airbnb
The techie in me want to give this 12 months to Google Chrome, Home windows Server 2008, or Hyper-V, as a result of all had been spectacular, influential merchandise. However the constitution for this record is applied sciences that modified us, and Airbnb has impacted housing, resorts, cities, and cities the world over.
What appeared like a easy sharing financial system approach of enabling of us to let rooms of their homes has grow to be a worldwide phenomenon, inflicting civil governments all around the planet to rethink their method to zoning and land use. It isn’t all good: Airbnb is blamed for rising rents and a discount within the availability of rental properties. Even so, Airbnb will get our nod, as a result of it is like nothing that has come earlier than.
Runner ups: Google Chrome and Tesla Roadster.
2009: Fitbit Tracker
As our record of runners-up for 2009 reveals, numerous innovation occurred in 2009. However we’re giving our nod to the primary Fitbit as a result of it helped kick off the quantified self motion with a tool sporting no subscription charges and a full week of battery life.
Additionally: How iOS 18 turned my Apple Watch into the productiveness instrument of my sci-fi desires
Though Fitbit has a raft of rivals as we speak, most notably the Apple Watch, the concept of gathering knowledge on private exercise to assist drive well being and health has gained traction ever since that first Fitbit. With the graying of the inhabitants, the growing value of healthcare, and the necessity for us all to get wholesome, the quantified self could also be a approach for us to handle our method to higher well being.
Runners up: Bitcoin, Chrome OS, USB 3.0, Uber based, Minecraft, and Home windows 7.
Additionally: The Nineteen Seventies | The Nineteen Eighties | The Nineteen Nineties | The 2000s | The 2010s
