Best of the Decade
We salute the most important, revolutionary products, services, and technologies of the last 10 years, as well as the most influential people of the decade.
Think back to the final days of 1999. Now, look around and see all that's missing. Many of the technology products and services that today literally put information at our fingertips, keep us connected and entertained, and enable us to quickly and efficiently buy just about anything, either did not yet exist or had not yet matured.
Back then, when we needed information, we didn't turn to the Web because its content was inchoate and not yet sufficiently organized. Besides, Web-based knowledge gathering was slow going, since most Americans used 54Kbps dial-up modems for access, which limited us to one Internet connection per phone line. Instead, we quaintly read printed newspapers and magazines.
As for entertainment, we listened to CDs on saucer-size portable disc players. MP3 downloading was a brand-new (and often illegal) option for college kids. For the most part, we still watched TV in real time; the idea of time shifting had not yet been articulated.
We communicated quite differently. Our cell phones were devoted to phone calls, though some enabled text messaging. But we had not yet connected and reconnected with friends and family via social networking.
Most of us were still humming the opening riffs of "Start Me Up" as we booted Windows 95 on our tower PCs. More significant, we considered our computers primarily tools for work (although many were playing Half-Life and Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time). PCs had not yet become the hubs of our personal lives.
The products, services, and technologies that transformed our lives in the 00s each, in its own way, realized the promise and the premise of the Internet. So, too, do our most influential people of the decade.
These bold thinkers burnish their reputations with game-changing innovation, whether it is measured by delivering information, creating indispensable services, or parsing the curious new business of sharing. Among these six men we found some common attributes: the quest for connectivity and community, astute business acumen, and sometimes-surprising sense of charity. Each, however, drew upon a unique reserve of outsize talent to maximize Internet technology and enrich our lives. Here's how they did it.
As 1999 wound down, we had no idea what wonders the new century held. Now we do, and this is our salute to the products, services, technologies, and people that transformed the first decade of the 21st century.—
Best Products, Services, and Technologies of the Decade
1. Google
Is Google psychic or what? From the very beginning, the search engine has generated uncannily accurate results to search queries. It does so by using a storied (and secret) algorithm.
We've had our eye on Google for some time now. In fact, in November 1999 we awarded the fledgling company a Technical Excellence Award.
Ever since, Google has been a phenomenon unmatched. The scrappy search engine attracted a loyal following of Internet users who found they could quickly find exactly the information they wanted. It became the world's largest search engine on July 11, 2000, with one billion items in its index. (Today, Google declines to disclose the size of its index, only saying "over the past year, we increased our index by billions of documents.")
The remarkable achievement of Google is that it has become our brain. These days, when we want information about a movie time, metric conversion, a historical tidbit, the solution to a software problem, the best price on just about any product, or an exact address, we simply Google it. More than one billion searches are performed on Google every day, and it is the most visited site on the Web, according to Alexa.
Ten years ago, Google was only a search engine. Today the Google conglomerate includes e-mail, photo-sharing, video, office productivity software, a shopping site, mapping service, a blogging platform, and a Web browser, among others.
In short, Google is where we go—for just about everything.
2. Apple iPhone
Talk about disruptive technology. The Apple iPhone has forever transformed our expectations of a cell phone. This 4.8-ounce wonder lets us make phone calls (arguably its weakest feature), browse Web sites, dispatch e-mail, watch and shoot video, take photos, and play games.
Thousands of people camped out to be among the first to own the device when it hit stores on June 29, 2007. Subsequent releases—the iPhone 3G and iPhone 3GS—were slightly less frenzied, but the device itself just keeps getting better.
Its bright multitouch screen, snap-simple interface, unmatched media player, and ample storage for data like contacts and calendars make it equally fun and essential. With the iPhone, Apple designers once again proved that a slick design and an intuitive interface are just as important as useful technology.
Its capabilities expanded exponentially on July 11, 2008, when Apple opened an App Store that enables users to download third-party software that make the device the world's most capable pocket computer. The App Store now contains more than 100,000 applications available for download, and competitors are scrambling to stock their own software stores.
The Apple iPhone is arguably the most successful attempt at convergence in tech product history. It's no wonder Apple has already sold more than 30 million iPhones.
3. Apple iPod
If you're like many of us, you remember the first time you held an Apple iPod in your hand and marveled that this beautifully designed MP3 player could store 1,000 songs.
The iPod, which debuted Oct. 23, 2001, was no one-hit wonder. The original 5GB device gave way to the mini, the shuffle, the nano, the touch, and the classic, whose 160GB hard drive can store an astounding 40,000 tunes.
The first iPod was a marvel of minimalist industrial design. Its scroll wheel redefined usability for handheld digital audio devices, with an interface that enables you to easily manage a library of thousands of tracks. Over the decade, the iPod became much more than an audio device, adding a color LCD and the ability to store calendars, contacts, photos, podcasts, videos, and games.
Apple's iTunes store enabled us to download and organize content, and became a pioneering business model. And the iPod itself created its own ecosystem of cases, headphones, in-car adapters, and speaker docks that supplanted home stereos. Airlines and hotels began to tout their iPod connection options, and the auto industry started including auxiliary jacks on factory-installed radios.
The iPod has transformed the way we buy, listen to, and share music. The device makes it possible to carry your entire collection of music in your pocket, buy new tunes on the fly, and play them in any number of ways.
4. Facebook
While Facebook was prefaced by Friendster and MySpace, neither attained the towering influence of Facebook. Today, the site counts some 350 million active users and accounts for 25 percent of page views in the United States.
Facebook, which went live February 2004, is now the second most-visited Web site in the world—and there's plenty to do when you get there. Members share personal trivia, likes and dislikes, videos, virtual gifts, and links to news stories. Facebook is the Web's largest photo-sharing site, with more than 2.5 billion photos uploaded each month. Businesses and organizations now connect with customers and members via Fan pages.
Facebook has become the digital equivalent of living in a small town, where everyone knows your business. It is not uncommon to learn that a friend's baby was born, that an acquaintance was promoted (or downsized), or that your sister is stuck in a blizzard. Facebook has ushered in a new era in which privacy is out and ambient awareness is in.
Facebook's meteoric rise hasn't been without controversy. Members have rebelled at the Beacon advertising program, site redesigns, privacy issues, and tolerance of offensive groups like holocaust deniers, to name a few.
Nonetheless, Facebook membership is increasing at a clip that could soon make it larger than Google.
5. Wi-Fi
In 2000 Americans started unplugging from broadband modems—it was an unwired revolution, enabling us to work from home, from the road, on the train, and even at 35,000 feet. Wi-Fi also made the Internet an anytime, anywhere source of information and entertainment.
Wi-Fi is a marketing term for the IEEE 802.11 specification. The first two specs, 802.11b and 802.11a, were ratified in December 1999 and January 2000 respectively. Before the specs, wireless devices were not interoperable—and therefore useless for the average home user.
As marketing initiatives go, Wi-Fi has been enormously influential. Today, 40 percent of U.S. homes have a wireless network, according to Nielsen. And Wi-Fi is not limited to home or office use: Today it blankets coffee shops, airports, hotels, public parks, universities, and some airplanes.
Besides liberating us from the RJ-45 cord, (and helping laptop sales overtake those of desktops), Wi-Fi enabled a burgeoning ecosystem of devices to connect and communicate on the home network. We use Wi-Fi to stream digital video and audio around our homes, send documents to a printer, connect to digital cameras for photo transfers, play videogames with far-flung combatants, and speed Web browsing on smart phones.
And without Wi-Fi, today's blockbuster computer, the netbook, would be virtually useless.—
6. Broadband Internet Access
Remember ISDN? Ten years ago that troublesome technology was the vanguard of broadband Internet access. Fortunately, the adoption of DSL and cable modems, as well as satellite and later cellular 3G Internet access, brought fast, always-on connections to a majority of homes.
Broadband started to gain serious traction early in the decade, according to Nielsen, which proclaimed in March 2002 broadband had "hit mainstream" as high-speed users eclipsed dial-up surfers. Today, Forrester Research says there are 80.9 million broadband homes in the United States.
Always-on broadband connectivity made the Internet essential. It laid the foundation for audio and video downloads (not always legal), video on demand, buying any and everything from online stores like Amazon.com, social networking, VoIP phone calls, videoconferencing, and (admit it) porn.
The transformative power of broadband extends beyond the home, however. The adoption of broadband coincided with the confluence of two momentous forces: the globalization of business and advancements in corporate IT networking. And that ushered in a new era of e-commerce that changed the way businesses operate and reach customers. The speed at which these forces upended the global economy was breathless, and the overall impact has been profound.
Never before has a single technology more dramatically changed the global economy and the way that we live. All at the speed of broadband.
7. TiVo
TiVo, in essence, televised the digital revolution—much to the horror of Hollywood. Not since the debut of videocassette recorders has a home-entertainment device caused such boot-shaking fear among broadcasting bigwigs—or delight among the video-viewing classes.
In 2003, FCC Chairman Michael Powell hailed the TiVo as "God's machine." It's easy to understand the enthusiasm.
TiVo took control away from the broadcasters and gave it to the viewers. You didn't have to be at home on Thursday night to see Friends: You just set it to record all episodes, and watch them when you wanted. No time for commercials? Skip them! And if you miss the punch line while tuned into live TV, simply rewind.
The first TiVo shipped in March 1999, and users soon were buzzing about its now-legendary ease of use, its ability to suggest programming based on viewing preferences, and its intuitive programming interface. Word spread, and by January 2007 TiVo reported 4.4 million subscribers.
Today TiVo is not quite the force it once was. Cable companies have sliced into the company's market share by integrating TiVo-like DVR capabilities into their set-top cable boxes. Nonetheless, the popularity of TiVo is unabated, at least in the generic sense. Today more than 38 million U.S. households have a DVR, most of which are provided by cable operators.
So if you're one of the millions of TV fans who can't imagine a world without TV program time shifting, thank TiVo.
8. GPS
Chances are, you may have first encountered a GPS navigational system in a Hertz rental car. The company started installing its pioneering NeverLost system in rental cars in 1997.
At the time, GPS guidance was quite costly. Worse, the global positioning satellites, which are owned by the U.S. government, were intentionally degraded for civilian use. In 2000, the government allowed civilian use of the military GPS signal, and pinpoint accuracy and turn-by-turn directions became a reality.
Today, about 31 percent of adults in North America use a mobile navigation system, according to Forrester Research. The in-car devices deliver turn-by-turn driving instructions that are automatically recalculated when you miss a turn. Spoken directions are available in a wide choice of vocal styles, from Snoop Dogg to a more staid EveryLady elevator voice.
In recent years we've seen GPS navigation gaining traction in smart phones like the iPhone by using downloadable apps. Cellular carriers offer a turn-by-turn GPS navigational service for roughly $10 a month.
GPS is not limited to driving instructions. We are now seeing more people use geotagging to add precise latitude and longitude information to photos, videos, and maps. We can now plot vacation photos on a map and even use the latitude and longitude data to locate and identify that out-of-the-way French restaurant we hope to return to.
And that's the beauty of GPS: It not only tells us where we're going, but where we've been.
9. Windows XP
We first reviewed Microsoft's Windows XP in September 2001. We praised its fusion of Windows 98's software and hardware support with the security of Windows NT. In fact, we proclaimed it "Microsoft's latest—and dare we say greatest—operating system to date."
What a prescient declaration that was. Nine years later, Windows XP is, by a long shot, still the most popular operating system in the world. XP commands roughly 62 percent of market share, while newcomer Windows 7 claims about 7 percent market share. Old XP is the operating system typically loaded on netbooks, the newest computer category.
And in what has to be an industry first, Microsoft offered a downgrade to XP for certain buyers of its disastrous Vista operating system.
What made XP so great? It was the first consumer-oriented operating system produced by Microsoft to be built on the Windows NT kernel and architecture. But it also included Windows 98's aptitude for running games and legacy hardware. The DOS coding that had been visible in preceding Microsoft operating systems was gone, and the Blue Screen of Death made less-frequent appearances.
Windows XP also added new networking capabilities (including support for wireless networking), features for mobile workers, an Internet firewall, and a Web cookie controller. We also liked the debut of Windows Media Player and automatic support for digital cameras.
With Windows XP, Microsoft targeted some of the features that would define the coming decade. Rarely does Redmond presage the future so accurately.
10. Apple iMac
When Steve Jobs took the stage to introduce the first iMac on May 6, 1998, he promised it would combine "the excitement of the Internet with the simplicity of the Macintosh."
He might have just called it an "insanely great" all-in-one computer.
The marriage of monitor and CPU box has been attempted time and time again, but it has never been carried off with the panache of the iMac. In the last decade, Apple has unveiled a string of all-in-one iMacs with LCD screens that have been eminently functional, elegantly designed, and increasingly affordable.
The earliest iMac with an LCD screen, the G4, followed a bold new design: Its 15-inch display was mounted on an adjustable arm above an ovoid base that housed the motherboard, processor, optical drive, hard drive, and other interior components. In future iterations, Apple would add much-copied innovations like a built-in webcam, a slot-loading DVD drive, integrated Wi-Fi, and wireless keyboards and mice.
Each new model has been a wonder of better, cleaner design. Typically, the front panel lacks speakers, control buttons, or ports. Instead, all the ports are lined up vertically on the back panel.
Other PC makers have tried to replicate the iMac, but none has come close. The iMac still represents the perfect fusion of style and performance, at an affordable price.—
The Most Influential People of the Decade
1. Steve Jobs
Apple CEO Steve Jobs loomed over the first decade of the 21st century like no other man.
At 54, Jobs and his accomplishments are legendary. The Apple co-founder is known for an exacting attention to detail and a keen knack for predicting a trend—not to mention a fixation on elegant design. He is widely considered the archetypal tech visionary of our time.
Skeptical? Consider these breakthroughs of the past 10 years: the Apple retail store (2001), the iPod (2003), the Apple iTunes Store (2003), the iPhone (2007), the Apple App Store (2008). Apple churned out a line of stunning laptops (the MacBook Air) and desktops (iMacs) throughout the decade, but Jobs was intensely focused on expanding the company's reach.
Accordingly, Jobs reached into the consumer electronics market to grab market share for new types of devices. In doing so, he used his formidable business acumen and persuasive negotiating skills to transform the way that the music, video, and cellular phone industries do business.
Jobs fully understood computers had moved beyond Excel spreadsheets. Home users were creating audio playlists and burning CDs, editing photos, and watching video. His achievement is that he was able to bridge the home computer with a line of consumer electronics that entertain, connect, and engage.
2. Sergey Brin and Larry Page
Sergey Brin and Larry Page have led Google through an expansion in scope and influence so profound that it would seem frankly preposterous were it not well documented.
In 1998, the duo began working on an Internet search engine based on the notion that relevant results come from context. They registered the domain Google in 1997, and entered a period of fevered growth. By the year 2000, Google already had indexed one billion URLs, making it the world's largest search engine.
It retains that title today. Although Google no longer reveals the size of its index, it is the world's most visited site. Google adeptly fields one billion search requests every day.
In an era when many companies were slow to monetize the Internet, Brin and Page put Google on the path to profitability with the 2003 launch of AdSense, a content-targeted advertising service. The ensuing influx of revenue enabled has Brin and Page to embark on a dizzying spree of acquisitions and product development.
Today Google touches just about every aspect of our digital lives. We go to Google for news, free public-domain books, navigational mapping, sharing photos, Web-based calendaring and productivity applications, YouTube videos, e-mail, language translation, and more. In addition, Google has developed its own Web browser, runs a platform for cloud-based data and application hosting, and is building its own operating system.
Who can guess the future ambitions of Brin and Page? All we can say is that, based on their history of extraordinary vision and accomplishments, they'll get it done.
3. Mark Zuckerberg
In 1984, Bill Gates landed his first cover of Time magazine, the Macintosh computer debuted, and Dell Computer was founded in an Austin dorm room. Oh, and Mark Zuckerberg was born in New York.
Today, at 25, Zuckerberg is the billionaire sultan of sharing. His Facebook social-networking site is the place where 350 million—and counting—friends log in to swap personal information, photos, videos, and games.
To say that Zuckerberg is an early achiever is an understatement. He mastered computer programming at an early age, hatched the prototype for Facebook in his Harvard dorm room, and is now the CEO of a private company with an estimated market value of $6.5 to $9.5 billion.
As CEO, he sets the overall direction and product strategy for Facebook. One of the most notable actions of the past decade was opening the Facebook API to third-party developers. That decision unleashed a torrent of applications that encouraged members to spend more time at the site taking quizzes, playing games, and stay connected using mobile devices. Facebook's on-site messaging and chat became two more powerful incentives to stay logged on.
Zuckerberg says he is focused only on building membership and wants to make Facebook the place where the entire world connects. He's well on his way to that, but how will Facebook profit from its astounding user base?
Zuckerberg isn't telling. He has, however, gathered a clutch of seasoned executives to help him guide the company into the new decade and, when the time is right, create a business plan.
4. Bill Gates
Bill Gates has been a titan of technology since the early days of the personal computer. Yet, even in retirement from Microsoft, he continues to wield tremendous influence on technology.
Gates, whose remains a non-executive chairman of Microsoft, left the company in June 2008 to run the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the world's largest philanthropy. Although his imprint on day-to-day decisions gradually waned over the past decade, his final years at Microsoft yielded some notable achievements.
Under his leadership, Microsoft focused on next-generation technology like cloud computing, which can help corporations efficiently manage data and applications by moving them to outsourced service providers. In 2007 Microsoft unveiled the Surface platform, a product Gates says will advance the natural user interface. And under his stewardship, the Windows Live and Microsoft Office Live platforms were developed in 2005, perhaps a bit late.
For much of the past decade, however, Gates has focused on the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, whose goal is to eradicate preventable diseases that imperil people in developing countries. The foundation harnesses the power of science and technology to research and halt diseases. Gates says he is optimistic that his foundation will help find the cure for some of the most common fatal diseases.
Gates will forever be known as the Man That Built Microsoft. But in the coming decades he aims to use the financial influence acquired as the founder of Microsoft to help save lives and end fatal diseases.
5. Craig Newmark
You probably wouldn't recognize Craig Newmark if you passed him on the street. But you know his eponymous list and what you can get there: anything you want.
Newmark, founder and chairman of Craigslist.org, is a self-professed nerd. Like his site, he is unassuming and simple, an everyman who just happens to run the 11th most popular venture on the Web. He's also the man that almost single-handedly changed the landscape for traditional classified advertising.
Craigslist is a centralized network of online communities that offer mostly free ads for products, services, and jobs. It is a behemoth that spans the globe, serving roughly 700 cities in 70 countries.
What makes Newmark outrageously unique is that, despite the scope and revenue potential of Craigslist, he has refused to sell out. (The company did sell a 25 percent stake to eBay in 2004, but that transaction is now in litigation and Newmark has complained that eBay wants to make Craigslist behave like a traditional business.) Newmark often says the real mission of Craigslist is to help people help one another, not to make a fast buck.
To that end, most ads are free. The site charges only for select ads (jobs in certain cities, some apartment ads, and adult services) that generate estimated revenues of $100 million a year. The organization is amazingly lean, with a staff of only 30 or so employees headquartered in a no-nonsense house in San Francisco. It is most certainly not the Googleplex.
It all sounds so nonchalant and laid-back. Yet Craigslist would not have attained its globe-spanning stature without a steady stream of clever strategy and marketing. That's the mark of Newmark, an uncommonly humane man in a digital world.