photo credit: Mykl Roventine

It really blew my mind a couple of weeks ago to think that 10 years ago was the dreaded Y2K.  It’s really hard to believe that much time had passed.  The last 10 years have definitely seen a leap forward in technology.

Y2K

How can we talk about 10 years ago without Y2K?  It was the fear that all life would end because computers and electronics weren’t designed to roll from 99 to 00.  It was feared to be a huge problem and I remember weeks before the ball started falling NYC the experts were still saying that not everything had been converted and we should buy generators and bottled water and bunker up at home.  It was pretty over-hyped.  The clock flipped that night without too much hassle (although a huge amount of fanfare!).  A few computers here and there had issues but nothing major.

Those days, the majority of computing was still done via mainframes.  The web was in it’s infancy.  So many of those old systems were written 25 or 30 years before.

Sept. 11, 2001

I won’t speak of Sept. 11th from the view of the atrocities or response.  But, in the technology realm it was a huge driver for the last decade.  Would we be discussing full body scanners at airports?  Would we have explosive sniffing devices?  What about all the discussion of camera systems in the U.S.?  The Department of Homeland Security was created and has spent billions on technology and devices since then.  It has even affected the discussion of the security of the Internet.  Many of the pushes since that time have revolved around how solid our nation’s infrastructure is.  The pre-9/11 complacency was replaced with vigilance in many avenues including technology after that.

Digital Mobile Networks

Digital phone networks existed pre-2000, but in 2000 the majority was still analog.  This conversion has been significant.  Would we have the iPhone, Blackberry, or Android style phones with our old analog networks?  Not a chance.  These devices require high speed connections to do all the cool things that we can do today.

High Speed Broadband at Home

In 2000, the majority were still using dial up.  Remember AOL?  Broadband was coming and many were moving in that direction but it hadn’t quite exploded yet.  Today, many are using broadband… even on their cell phones.  I would say that I have a 5 to 10 times better connection on my mobile phone today than I had on my computer in 2000.  This has also created huge opportunities on the Internet.  Many people are shopping, banking, socializing, and honestly even living online today.  This is due to a large degree on the increased capacity broadband provides.

Web 2.0

Have to throw it out there.  Web 2.0 or social web has changed the way we look at the Internet.  In 2000, the web was mainly a billboard type system for business.  You posted some information about your business and/or product and people would contact you to find out more.  Maybe you were really pushing the envelope and had an online commerce system or maybe even an dynamic inventory system.  Today, you are directly interacting with people around the globe.  Sharing your knowledge and having to be real with your customers.   The social web demands something more of people and the Internet.  It demands relationship… that is not how it was just 4 or 5 years ago… let alone 10 years ago.

Google Who?

In the year 2000, Google was only about a year old.  They had just barely moved out of the garage office.  They were trying to convince the then giant Yahoo to consider using their search engine.  It wasn’t until June of 2000 that Google inked the deal to support Yahoo.  Obviously a huge moment in the decade looking back on it.  Today, only 10 years later Google is gorilla in the market.  They control much of the flow of the game.  Isn’t it amazing that just over 10 years ago those guys were working out of their garage?

Although the year 2000 doesn’t seem like all that long ago, I think a huge amount of technological change has occurred.  It is all moving very quickly.  We have set the foundations for the revolutions of the next decade.  We are already seeing some of the changes that are going to happen.  People all over the U.S. are dreaming up the next big thing.

Where are we headed?  What will we be discussing when 2020 comes as the great technological changes of the 2010’s?