The early 2000’s were a period of swift change and enormous growth in internet history. This time period witnessed the dramatic rise and fall of the Dot-com bubble, the introduction of groundbreaking social media and search platforms like YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter, and the roll-out of revolutionary technologies like the iPhone and 4G networks. Read on for a look at the stories of influential figures like Satoshi Nakamoto, who introduced Bitcoin, and companies like Google and Apple that continued to push the boundaries of innovation.
2000
One of the worst crises for tech and internet companies happened in 2000. The “Dot-com bubble burst” happened on the stock market, because too many people started investing in technology and internet companies due to the growth of the internet. The height of the bubble was when the NASDAQ stock index reached 5132. This caused the crash of many startups. From 2000 to 2002 the bubble caused a total loss of $5 trillion for various tech companies.
Source: Wikipedia
The first large-scale DDos attack was launched in 2000 by Mike “MafiaBoy” Calce. The attack combined a total loss of over $1 billion and targeted companies like Yahoo, Amazon, eBay, Dell, and CNN. This event showed just how important internet security is and that even a 14-year-old boy can cause serious issues when he knows what he’s doing.
Source: Cnet
A social networking website for young adults and teenagers, “Habbo”, was launched. This video-game-like online community showed how creative the internet can be and that even younger generations can have a lot of fun on it.
Source: Wikipedia
An online advertising site by the name of “Google Ads” is launched by Google. It was the first online advertising platform that offered a lot of different marketing options.
Source: Wikipedia
A game development company Maxis launches the “Sims” game through Electronic Arts. This was one of the first globally popular simulation games where players created virtual people and their home. Players could customize characters, change their living space, and control their careers and social life.
Source: Wikipedia
The African father of the internet, Professor Nii Quaynor, starts his own training workshop focused on the African Network Operators’ Group. His training efforts have a great impact on the growth and development of the African internet.
Source: NewAfrican
| People Mike “MafiaBoy” Calce – born in Montreal, Canada in 1986. Calce became known as a 14 year old kid, when he launched a large-scale DDOS attack (denial of service attack) in 2000. He targeted some of the largest sites of the time, including CNN, eBay, Dell Inc, Amazon, and so on. Calce was sentenced to an 8-month open custody for his acts. He is currently a known security expert. Source: Wikipedia Nii Quaynor – date of birth unknown. This Ghanaian engineer and computer scientist had an instrumental part to play in bringing and developing the internet around Africa. He was the Board Director of ICANN, member of the Internet Society, National Information Technology Agency Chairman of the Board. Source: ICANNWiki Technologies & companies Statistics |
2001
Larry Sanger and Jimmy Wales launched Wikipedia in January. The first commercially successful online encyclopedia that wasn’t only open source but free for all to use and update.
Source: Wikipedia
Lawrence Lessig led the project on building Creative Commons. Within the Harvard Law School Professor’s team was Aaron Swartz, who made some major contributions to the Creative Commons open architecture. This architecture reduces various barriers for reusing and sharing various educational and research materials.
Source: Wikipedia
Mike Bergman coined the term “Deep Web”. He came up with the phrase while leading Bright Planet, a data collection company. This term was used when they were looking for web data that wasn’t indexed.
Source: Computer Hope
Google introduced its “Image Search” that instantly gives users access to more than 250 million images on the internet.
Source: Wikipedia
XM Radio made its services commercially available to the public. This was a satellite radio connected to the internet.
Source: Wikipedia
The first Apple earbuds and the iPod are presented by Apple Inc. Nobody knew just how successful these would be at the time.
Source: Apple
| People Jimmy Wales – born in Huntsville, Alabama in 1966. A successful internet entrepreneur that founded two important online encyclopedias. He co-founded Wikipedia which is a nonprofit, and Fandom that’s a for-profit company. Even though Larry Sanger was the co-founder of Wikipedia, Wales never wanted to admit they created the site together. Source: Wikipedia Larry Sanger – born in Bellevue, Washington in 1968. As an internet project developer his most recognized work is the development of Wikipedia. He created the governing policies for Wikipedia and came up with the name. He also worked on other educational sites like Everipedia, Citizendium, and Nupedia. Source: Wikipedia Aaron Swartz – born in Highland Park, Illinois in 1986. He was a computer programmer, internet hacktivist, and political organizer. He helped develop RSS, Creative Commons, and put Reddit where it is today. He also helped with the formation of Progressive Change Campaign Committee and a group called the Demand Progress that wanted to make internet piracy legal. Swartz committed suicide in 2013. Source: Wikipedia Mike Bergman – date of birth unknown. An internet entrepreneur, consultant, and scientist. He was the founder of BrithPlanet, chairman, and CTO. He also founded VisualMetrics and TheWebTools Company. He was also the Chief Executive Officer of Zitgist LLC and Structured Dynamics LLC. Source: MKBergman Technologies & companies Statistics |
2002
eBay acquired PayPal. Up until that moment, PayPal had been doing well on its own, but this acquisition was a decisive moment that propelled PayPal into the large payment platform we know today.
Source: Wikipedia
Reid Hoffman started working on a business network called LinkedIn. By May 5th, 2003, Hoffman launched his new network that would become the proving grounds for internet professionals and other industry leaders.
Source: The Linked In Man
Nepal was connected to the internet by Mahabir Pun and his associates from Europe and the US. Using homemade antennas and long range wireless links he was able to connect a small village in Nepal to the internet. This was just the beginning and it led to the formation of the Nepal Wireless Network that connected more than 175 locations to the web.
Source: Everys
| People Reid Hoffman – born in Palo Alto, California in 1967. A distinguished author, investor, and internet entrepreneur. He is best known as the founder and chairman of LinkedIn, a social network for business. He is also one of the partners at the Greylock Partners venture capital firm. Source: Wikipedia Mahabir Pun – born in Myagdi District, Nepal in 1955. He is a respected teacher, activist, and social entrepreneur. He is the leader of the Nepal Wireless Networking Project which was instrumental in bringing internet connectivity and wireless technology in Nepal and its rural areas around the Himalayas. Source: Wikipedia Technologies & companies Statistics |
2003
Apple launches its iTunes Music Store. This was the first music web store that legally sold music coming from some of the largest labels in the world. Even though the store initially had around 200,000 songs available, it developed quickly, as all the labels continued adding the songs of their artists. In just 24 hours, the store sold over 250,000 songs that could be played on iPods.
Source: The Telegraph
Hutchison Telecommunications launched the first publicly available 3G network.
Source: History of GSM
Andy Rubin founded Android in October.
Source: Wikipedia
A company from Luxembourg called Skype Technologies launches its online communication software “Skype”. The company was founded by Janus Friis and Niklas Zennstrom with this single vision.
WordPress was launched by co-founders Matt Mullenweg and Mike Little.
Source: Wikipedia
MySpace was launched and in just a couple of months it became the largest social network on the internet. In 3 years, the total number of accounts was over 100 million. The co-founders of MySpace are Jon Hart, Chris DeWolfe, and Tom Anderson.
Source: Wikipedia
Apple Inc launched its own mobile internet browser for iOS devices called Safari.
Source: Wikipedia
One of the most popular peer-to-peer platforms, “The Pirate Bay” or TPB, was launched in November.
Source: Wikipedia
| People Reid Hoffman – born in Palo Alto, California in 1967. A distinguished author, investor, and internet entrepreneur. He is best known as the founder and chairman of LinkedIn, a social network for business. He is also one of the partners at Greylock Partners venture capital firm. Source: Wikipedia Andy Rubin – born in Chappaqua, New York in 1963. He’s a venture capitalist, computer entrepreneur, programmer, and an engineer. Known as the founder of Playground Global and CEO. He also co-founded Android Inc. and Danger Inc. Source: Wikipedia Matt Mullenweg – born in Houston, Texas in 1984. This web developer and businessman is best known for creating WordPress, an open-source and free-for-all web software. Mullenweg dropped out of college to work for CNET for two years, after which he founded Automattic. This company created Tumblr, WordPRess.com, Gravatar, IntenseDebate, and Akismet. Source: Wikipedia Mahabir Pun – born in Myagdi District, Nepal in 1955. He is a respected teacher, activist, and social entrepreneur. He is the leader of the Nepal Wireless Networking Project which was instrumental in bringing internet connectivity and wireless technology in Nepal and its rural areas around the Himalayas. Source: Wikipedia Technologies & companies Statistics |
2004
Facebook was created in 2004. At first it was called “The Facebook” and it wasn’t meant to be used as a global social network. It was an online directory for college students to help them connect. It was created by a group of Harvard College students Mark Zuckeberg, Chris Hughes, Dusting Moskovitz, Andrew McCollum, and Eduardo Saverin. Overnight Facebook got over 1,000 registrations and soon enough, the network expanded to other large universities in the US.
Source: Wikipedia
Source: PopularMechanics.com
Gmail was first launched. At the time, the most popular email services were Yahoo that gave its users 4MB of free storage and Hotmail that provided 2MB. But when Google announced the release of Gmail, they shocked the world when they promised that their email service would give 1GB of free space to its users.
Even though many thought this was only marketing talk, Google delivered. This made a great impact on how much storage space email providers gave to users. Megabytes simply weren’t enough anymore. It sparked a storage war that Gmail ultimately won as almost nobody uses Yahoo or Hotmail today.
Source: Wikipedia
This was the same year when Digg was created. Initially it was a tech news hub but over time Digg expanded into various areas such as entertainment, economy, and politics. This news site is socially moderated meaning that the users decide what happens on the platform and how it evolves. It’s one of the most popular Web 2.0 products even though it wasn’t acquired by any major tech company. Sadly, Digg couldn’t keep up with the newer online technologies and designs, which drove its users away over time.
Source: Mashable
The video and image hosting service Flickr was launched. This online platform and community was made by Ludicorp and it quickly gained popularity with both professional and amateur photographers who could use it to host and post high resolution photos they’ve made.
Source: seowebmarketing
Blizzard Entertainment created and published its MMORPG called the World of Warcraft. Even though it wasn’t the first MMORPG, for many people it was because it became the most popular game for a certain time and the most popular game ever in the genre.
Source: Wikipedia
OPENWORLD LTD was founded by Dorcas Muthoni. This software company was crucial in developing and delivering some of the most important cloud and web-based applications throughout the African continent.
Source: Lioness of Africa
| People Mark Zuckerberg – born in White Plains, New York in 1984. An internet entrepreneur and media magnate, best known as the CEO of Facebook and one of the main-contributing founders. He’s also the board member and founder of the “Breakthrough Starshot” project. He’s the main shareholder of Facebook and is currently the 4th richest person on Earth, according to Forbes. Source: Wikipedia Mahabir Pun – born in Myagdi District, Nepal in 1955. He is a respected teacher, activist, and social entrepreneur. He is the leader of the Nepal Wireless Networking Project which was instrumental in bringing internet connectivity and wireless technology in Nepal and its rural areas around the Himalayas. Source: Wikipedia Technologies & companies Statistics |
2005
YouTube was founded by Chad Hurley, Steve Chen, and Jawed Karim – three former employees of PayPal. It was a perfect moment for creating this kind of service, as web-based and flash-based video sharing was booming. In a short period of time, YouTube became the main engine for revolutionizing web-based video. Even though it didn’t have the best video quality, it was approachable and easy to use. YouTube also hosted the first-ever online presidential debate in the United States. Google acquired YouTube in 2006 for $1.6 billion.
Source: Cnet
Aaron Swartz, Steve Huffman, and Alexis Ohanian started Reddit – a discussion, content rating, and social news aggregation website.
Source: Wikipedia
Google announced the launch of its Web mapping site called “Google Maps”. At first, it was designed as a desktop program developed by a company called “Where 2 Technologies”. However, it was quickly acquired by Google and transformed into a web mapping service.
Source: Wikipedia
Dial-up internet connections became obsolete, as they were surpassed by high-speed broadband internet connections. The number of broadband internet users in the US surpasses narrow-band users.
Source: The Wall Street Journal
| People Jawed Karim – born in Merseburg, Germany in 1979. An internet entrepreneur and software engineer that co-founded YouTube. The first video ever on YouTube was uploaded by Karim with the name “Me at the Zoo” in April 2005. He designed some of the essential components of the platform such as the anti-fraud system that works in real-time. Source: Wikipedia Steve Chen – born in Taipei, Taiwan in 1978. He is the former CTO of YouTube and a co-founder of the- platform. He also created an app for video sharing called MixBit and co-founded AVOS Systems Inc. Since 2014 he has been a member of Google Ventures. Source: Wikipedia Chad Hurley – born in Reading, Pennsylvania in 1977. He is the co-founder of MixBit and YouTube. Hurley is also the former Chief Executive Officer of these companies. Together with Steve Chen, he is responsible for selling YouTube to Google and making the acquisition a reality. While working for PayPal, he was instrumental in designing the company’s logo. Source: Wikipedia Alexis Ohanian – born in Brooklyn, New York in 1983. A known venture capitalist and internet entrepreneur. One of the co-founders of Reddit and Initialized Capital. He created Breadpig and Hipmunk and was one of the leading partners at Y Combinator. Source: Wikipedia Steve Huffman – born in 1983. An internet entrepreneur and web developer that co-founded Reddit. Huffman is currently the CEO of the website and was also one of the co-founders of Hipmunk. Even though he is the leader of one of the top websites in the world he is a strong advocate of Net Neutrality. Source: Wikipedia Technologies & companies Statistics |
2006
Noah Glass, Biz Stone, Evan Williams, and Jack Dorsey launched Twitter. The site would eventually grow into one of the largest social media platforms.
Source: Business Insider
VKontakte was launched. This social network is designed for Russia and Russian-speaking regions. It grew quickly in popularity and became “the Facebook of Russia”. Its founders are Lev Binzumovich Leviev, Yitzchak Mirilashvili, Pavel Durov, and Nikolai Durov.
Source: Wikipedia
jQuery was presented by John Resig. It would quickly grow into the largest JavaScript library.
Source: Wikipedia
| Key people Jack Dorsey – born in St. Louis, Missouri in 1976. A tech entrepreneur best known as the CEO and co-founder of both Square and Twitter. He is also the board member of Berggruen Institute’s Governance Center. Dorsey is one of the most successful internet entrepreneurs with a net worth over 10 billion. Source: Wikipedia Evan Williams – born in Clarks, Nebraska in 1972. Best known as the former Chief Executive Officer of Twitter and CEO. Williams is also the co-founder of Twitter, Medium, and Blogger. Initially, he and Meg Hourihan created Pyra Labs that was supposed to be a project management software, but it evolved into Blogger. Source: Wikipedia Biz Stone – born in Boston, Massachusetts in 1974. He is one of the co-founders of Twitter. He also worked at Xanga as the creative director and launched Jelly together with Ben Finkel. Stone was the CEO of Jelly until 2017 when the company was acquired by Pinterest. After that stone decided to come back and work for Twitter Inc. Source: Wikipedia Noah Glass – date of birth unknown. Glass is an internet entrepreneur that is best known as the co-founder of Odeo and Twitter. He was instrumental in creating Twitter and naming the platform. Even though his work was important for the launch of the company, he left in 2006. Source: Wikipedia Pavel Durov – born in Saint Petersburg in 1984. He is the founder of Telegram Messenger and VK. This internet entrepreneur is also a member of the Young Global Leaders Forum and World Economic Forum. He was the CEO of VK until 2014 after which he decided to travel the world in exile. Nikolai Durov is his older brother and together they founded VK. Source: Wikipedia John Resig – born in Boston, Massachusetts in 1984. A JavaScript programming expert who created jQuery. Resig worked on various JavaScript projects that are still essential for the development of the web. He also wrote two books on JavaScript: “Pro JavaScript Techniques” and “Secrets of the JavaScript Ninja”. He also works at Khan Academy, giving free education to people all across the globe. Source: Johnresig.com, Wikipedia Companies and technologies Key statistics |
2007
The iPhone was created by Apple Inc, which marked the turning point in mobile internet development. The first iPhone was introduced to the public with 4GB and 8GB storage options. They were sold respectively for $499 and $599.
Source: Wikipedia
Ermanno Pietrosemoli achieved the official world record for the largest Wi-Fi connection that spread over 382 km.
Source: Cnet
Estonia used the internet for voting in their parliamentary election, becoming the first country in the world to use the internet for voting.
Source: Wikipedia
Netflix introduced its streaming services. Even though Netflix was founded in 1997, its core services were movie rentals. However, in 2007 the company introduced a new type of service called “streaming” that allowed users to watch films, TV shows, and documentaries instantly over their website. Netflix became the largest video streaming platform and today it’s the synonym for streaming.
Source: PopularMechanics.com
An electronic musician and sound designer from Sweden Eric Wahlforss and Alexander Ljung created SoundCloud in Berlin, Germany. The official website was launched a year later.
Source: Pagan Research
Drew Houston and Arash Ferdowsi created Dropbox. Houston was instrumental in expanding the idea behind Dropbox and making it a global service used by millions of people.
Source: Dropbox
| People Ermanno Pietrosemoli – date of birth unknown. Currently working as researcher at the International Centre for Theoretical Physics in Trieste. Ermanno has been spreading the internet ever since it started. He helped deploy low cost technical solutions and wireless communication in countries like the USA, Venezuela, Peru, Morocco, Mexico, Italy, Ecuador, Colombia, Argentina, and so on. Source: IEEE.org Alexander Ljung – born in the United Kingdom in 1981. He is one of the co-founders of SoundCloud and its Managing Director and CEO. He is a motion film music producer and sound designer that specializes in post-production. Before founding SoundCloud he worked at SF Anytime as Business & Product Developer. Source: Crunchbase Eric Wahlforss – data of birth unknown. One of the founders of SoundCloud. He is the Chief Technology Officer of the company. Apart from working at the company he is a full-time music artist performing by the name “Fortress.” He also co-created the “Strategy & Interaction” web consultancy network before starting SoundCloud. Source: gotopia Drew Houston – born in Acton, Massachusetts in 1983. One of the co-founders of Dropbox and the CEO of the company. This internet entrepreneur has a net worth around $2.5 billion. Before founding Dropbox he worked on various startups including HubSpot, Accolade, and Bit9. He currently owns 25% of Dropbox. Source: Wikipedia Technologies & companies Statistics |
2008
Apple launched its software digital market for iOS devices called the App Store.
Source: Wikipedia
At the same time, Google also launched its software digital market “Android Market” for devices using Android operating systems. This store would later be named “Google Play”.
Source: Wikipedia
The first version of Google Chrome internet browser was released to the public by Google.
Source: Wikipedia
Satoshi Nakamoto created Blockchain. It was designed to be used as the public transaction ledger for all the transactions made via bitcoin cryptocurrency. There are speculations that the name Satoshi Nakamoto was a pseudonym for a group of people.
Source: Wikipedia
| People Satoshi Nakamoto – a pseudonym used by a group of people who created blockchain and bitcoin. This name is also the name behind the first blockchain database, bitcoin reference implementation, and bitcoin white paper. He (they) is also responsible for implementing a peer-to-peer network to prevent double spending with digital currencies. Source: Wikipedia Technologies & companies Statistics |
2009
The alias Satoshi Nakamoto appeared again to present Bitcoin to the world.
Source: Wikipedia
Evan Sharp, Paul Sciarra, and Ben Silberman finished their work on creating Pinterest and launched the platform. Initially, it was imagined as a website for sharing photos, but it quickly evolved into a social network as well.
Source: Wikipedia
Google acquired the GrandCentral telephone service and launched Google Voice. It’s basically an upgraded and rebranded version of GrandCentral.
Source: Wikipedia
A messenger app called WhatsApp was founded.
Source: Wikipedia
Microsoft launched its own search engine to complete with Google – Bing.
Source: Wikipedia
Garret Camp and Travis Kalanick founded Uber in March.
Source: Wikipedia
TeliaSonera launched the 4G network publicly. This was the first telecom operator ever to offer 4G commercially.
Source: Wikipedia
| People Satoshi Nakamoto – a pseudonym used by a group of people who created blockchain and bitcoin. This name is also the name behind the first blockchain database, bitcoin reference implementation, and bitcoin white paper. He (they) is also responsible for implementing a peer-to-peer network to prevent double spending with digital currencies. Source: Wikipedia Travis Kalanick – born in Los Angeles, California in 1976. A successful businessman that co-founded Uber, Red Swoosh, and Scour. He is also the former Chief Executive Officer of Uber. Due to the scandal that made him quit Uber, Kalanick also sold most of his shares at Uber. He is one of the richest people in the world. Source: Wikipedia Garrett Camp – born in Calgary, Alberta in 1978. A product designed and internet entrepreneur. He is best known as one of the co-founders of Uber, and he is also a board member of the company. Apart from that, he founded many other successful companies, including StumbleUpon and Expa. Source: Wikipedia Technologies & companies Statistics |
To Be Continued
