The early 2000s were a time of rapid change and tremendous growth in Internet history. This period witnessed the dramatic rise and fall of the dot-com bubble, the introduction of groundbreaking social media and search platforms such as YouTube, Facebook and Twitter, and the introduction of revolutionary technologies such as the iPhone and 4G networks. Read on to take a look at the stories of influential figures like Satoshi Nakamoto, who introduced Bitcoin, and companies like Google and Apple that have continued to push the boundaries of innovation.
2000
One of the worst crises for technology and Internet companies occurred in 2000. The bursting of the “dot-com bubble” occurred in the stock market because too many people began to invest in technology and Internet companies due to the growth of the Internet. The peak of the bubble was when the NASDAQ stock index reached 5132. This led to the collapse of many startups. From 2000 to 2002, the bubble caused a total loss of $5 trillion for various technology companies.
Source: Wikipedia
The first large-scale DDoS attack was launched in 2000 by Mike “MafiaBoy” Calce. The attack caused a total loss of over $1 billion and targeted companies such as Yahoo, Amazon, eBay, Dell and CNN. This event showed how important internet safety is and that even a 14 year old boy can cause serious problems if he knows what he is doing.
Source: Cnet
Habbo, a social networking website for young adults and teenagers, was launched. This video game-like online community showed how creative the Internet can be and how younger generations can also have a lot of fun with it.
Source: Wikipedia
Google launches an online advertising site called “Google Ads”. It was the first online advertising platform to offer many different marketing options.
Source: Wikipedia
A game development company, Maxis, launches the game “Sims” through Electronic Arts. This was one of the first globally popular simulation games where players created virtual people and their homes. Players can customize characters, change their habitats, and control their careers and social lives.
Source: Wikipedia
The African Father of the Internet, Professor Nii Quaynor, launches his own training workshop focusing on the African Network Operators’ Group. His training efforts have had a major impact on the growth and development of the African Internet.
Source: New African
| People Mike “MafiaBoy” Calce – born 1986 in Montreal, Canada. Calce came to prominence as a 14-year-old boy when he launched a large-scale denial-of-service (DDOS) attack in 2000. He targeted some of the biggest websites at the time, including CNN, eBay, Dell Inc, Amazon, etc. Calce was sentenced to eight months in prison for his actions. He is currently a well-known security expert. Source: Wikipedia Nii Quaynor – Date of birth unknown. This Ghanaian engineer and computer scientist played a crucial role in the introduction and development of the Internet across Africa. He was chairman of the board of ICANN, a member of the Internet Society and chairman of the board of the National Information Technology Agency. Source: ICANNWiki Technologies & Companies statistics |
2001
Larry Sanger and Jimmy Wales launched Wikipedia in January. The first commercially successful online encyclopedia that was not only open source, but free for all to use and update.
Source: Wikipedia
Lawrence Lessig led the project to build Creative Commons. The Harvard Law School professor’s team included Aaron Swartz, who made some important contributions to the open architecture of Creative Commons. This architecture reduces various barriers to the reuse and sharing of various educational and research materials.
Source: Wikipedia
Mike Bergman coined the term “Deep Web”. He came up with the phrase while running Bright Planet, a data collection company. This term was used when searching for web data that was not indexed.
Source: Computer Hope
Google has introduced its “Image Search”, which gives users instant 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 earphones and iPod are introduced by Apple Inc. At the time, no one knew how successful these would be.
Source: Apple
| People Jimmy Wales – born 1966 in Huntsville, Alabama. A successful internet entrepreneur who founded two major online encyclopedias. He co-founded Wikipedia, a nonprofit organization, and Fandom, a for-profit company. Although Larry Sanger was the co-founder of Wikipedia, Wales never wanted to admit that they had created the site together. Source: Wikipedia Larry Sanger – born 1968 in Bellevue, Washington. As an Internet project developer, the development of Wikipedia is his best-known work. He created the authoritative guidelines for Wikipedia and invented the name. He also worked on other educational sites such as Everipedia, Citizendium and Nupedia. Source: Wikipedia Aaron Swartz – born 1986 in Highland Park, Illinois. He was a computer programmer, internet hacktivist and political organizer. He helped develop RSS and Creative Commons and made Reddit what it is today. He also helped form the Progressive Change Campaign Committee and a group called Demand Progress that sought to legalize Internet piracy. 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 also served as Chief Executive Officer of Zitgist LLC and Structured Dynamics LLC. Source: MK Bergman Technologies & Companies statistics |
2002
eBay has acquired PayPal. Up until that point, PayPal was doing well on its own, but this acquisition was a pivotal moment that turned PayPal into the major payments platform we know today.
Source: Wikipedia
Reid Hoffman started working on a corporate network called LinkedIn. Until May 5thThIn 2003, Hoffman launched his new network, which would become the proving ground for Internet professionals and other industry leaders.
Source: The connected person
Nepal was connected to the Internet by Mahabir Pun and his associates from Europe and the USA. Using homemade antennas and long-distance wireless connections, he was able to connect a small village in Nepal to the Internet. This was just the beginning and led to the creation of the Nepal Wireless Network, which connected more than 175 locations to the Internet.
Source: Everyone
| People Reid Hoffman – born 1967 in Palo Alto, California. A respected author, investor and internet entrepreneur. He is best known as the founder and chairman of LinkedIn, a social network for businesses. He is also a partner at venture capital firm Greylock Partners. Source: Wikipedia Mahabir pun – born 1955 in Myagdi District, Nepal. He is a respected teacher, activist and social entrepreneur. He is the leader of the Nepal Wireless Networking Project, which has been instrumental in providing 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 webshop to legally sell music from some of the biggest labels in the world. Although the store initially had around 200,000 songs in stock, it quickly grew as all the labels continued to add songs from 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 Luxembourg company called Skype Technologies is launching its online communication software “Skype”. With this single vision, the company was founded by Janus Friis and Niklas Zennström.
WordPress was founded by co-founders Matt Mullenweg and Mike Little.
Source: Wikipedia
MySpace was launched and within a few months 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. has 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 1967 in Palo Alto, California. A respected author, investor and internet entrepreneur. He is best known as the founder and chairman of LinkedIn, a social network for businesses. He is also a partner at venture capital firm Greylock Partners. Source: Wikipedia Andy Rubin – born 1963 in Chappaqua, New York. He is a venture capitalist, computer entrepreneur, programmer and engineer. Known as the founder of Playground Global and CEO. He also co-founded Android Inc. and Danger Inc. Source: Wikipedia Matt Mullenweg – born 1984 in Houston, Texas. This web developer and businessman is best known for developing WordPress, an open source web software that is free for everyone. Mullenweg dropped out of college to work for CNET for two years. He then founded Automattic. This company created Tumblr, WordPRess.com, Gravatar, IntenseDebate, and Akismet. Source: Wikipedia Mahabir pun – born 1955 in Myagdi District, Nepal. He is a respected teacher, activist and social entrepreneur. He is the leader of the Nepal Wireless Networking Project, which has been instrumental in providing internet connectivity and wireless technology in Nepal and its rural areas around the Himalayas. Source: Wikipedia Technologies & Companies statistics |
2004
Facebook was founded in 2004. At first it was called “The Facebook” and was not intended to be a global social network. It was an online directory for college students to help them network. It was created by a group of Harvard College students Mark Zuckeberg, Chris Hughes, Dusting Moskovitz, Andrew McCollum and Eduardo Saverin. Overnight, Facebook received over 1,000 sign-ups and the network soon expanded to other major universities in the United States.
Source: Wikipedia
Source: PopularMechanics.com
Gmail was launched for the first time. At the time, the most popular email services were Yahoo, which provided its users with 4MB of free storage, and Hotmail, which provided 2MB. But when Google announced the release of Gmail, the company shocked the world by promising that its email service would provide its users with 1GB of free storage.
Even though many thought this was just a marketing pitch, Google delivered. This had a big impact on how much storage space email providers made available to users. Megabytes simply weren’t enough anymore. It started a storage war that Gmail ultimately won, since almost no one uses Yahoo or Hotmail anymore.
Source: Wikipedia
This was the same year Digg was founded. Initially it was a tech news hub, but over time Digg expanded into various areas such as entertainment, business and politics. This news site is socially moderated, meaning users decide what happens on the platform and how it develops. It is one of the most popular Web 2.0 products, even though it has not been adopted by any major technology company. Unfortunately, Digg couldn’t keep up with newer online technologies and designs, which drove away its users over time.
Source: Crushable
The video and image hosting service Flickr was launched. This online platform and community was created by Ludicorp and quickly became popular with both professional and amateur photographers, who could use it to host and publish high-resolution photos they had taken.
Source: SEO web marketing
Blizzard Entertainment created and published its MMORPG called World of Warcraft. Even though it wasn’t the first MMORPG, for many it was because it became the most popular game and the most popular game ever in the genre for a while.
Source: Wikipedia
OPENWORLD LTD was founded by Dorcas Muthoni. This software company has been instrumental in developing and deploying some of the most important cloud and web-based applications across the African continent.
Source: Lioness of Africa
| People Mark Zuckerberg – born 1984 in White Plains, New York. An internet entrepreneur and media tycoon, known as the CEO of Facebook and one of the main founders. He is also a board member and founder of the Breakthrough Starshot project. He is the main shareholder of Facebook and is currently the 4thTh According to Forbes, he is the richest person in the world. Source: Wikipedia Mahabir pun – born 1955 in Myagdi District, Nepal. He is a respected teacher, activist and social entrepreneur. He is the leader of the Nepal Wireless Networking Project, which has been instrumental in providing 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 PayPal employees. It was the perfect time to create such a service as web-based and flash-based video sharing was booming. In a short time, YouTube became the main engine for revolutionizing web-based videos. Although it didn’t have the best video quality, it was accessible and easy to use. The first online presidential debate in the United States also took place on YouTube. Google acquired YouTube in 2006 for $1.6 billion.
Source: Cnet
Aaron Swartz, Steve Huffman and Alexis Ohanian founded Reddit – a discussion, content rating and social news aggregation website.
Source: Wikipedia
Google has announced the launch of its web mapping site called “Google Maps”. It was originally designed as a desktop program developed by a company called Where 2 Technologies. However, it was quickly acquired by Google and turned into a web mapping service.
Source: Wikipedia
Dial-up Internet connections have become obsolete as they have been replaced by high-speed broadband Internet connections. The number of broadband Internet users in the United States exceeds the number of narrowband Internet users.
Source: The Wall Street Journal
| People Jawed Karim – born 1979 in Merseburg, Germany. An internet entrepreneur and software developer who co-founded YouTube. The first ever video on YouTube was uploaded by Karim in April 2005 called “Me at the Zoo”. He designed some of the platform’s essential components, such as the anti-fraud system that works in real time. Source: Wikipedia Steve Chen – born 1978 in Taipei, Taiwan. He is the former CTO of YouTube and co-founder of the platform. He also developed a video sharing app called MixBit and co-founded AVOS Systems Inc. He has been a member of Google Ventures since 2014. Source: Wikipedia Chad Hurley – born 1977 in Reading, Pennsylvania. 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 played a key role in designing the company logo. Source: Wikipedia Alexis Ohanian – born 1983 in Brooklyn, New York. A well-known venture capitalist and internet entrepreneur. One of the co-founders of Reddit and Initialized Capital. He founded Breadpig and Hipmunk and was a lead partner at Y Combinator. Source: Wikipedia Steve Huffman – born 1983. An internet entrepreneur and web developer who co-founded Reddit. Huffman is currently the website’s CEO and was also one of the co-founders of Hipmunk. Despite being the head of one of the best websites in the world, he is a strong supporter of net neutrality. Source: Wikipedia Technologies & Companies statistics |
2006
Noah Glass, Biz Stone, Evan Williams and Jack Dorsey started Twitter. The website would eventually grow into one of the largest social media platforms.
Source: Business Insider
VKontakte has been launched. This social network is designed for Russia and Russian-speaking regions. It quickly grew 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 introduced by John Resig. It would quickly become the largest JavaScript library.
Source: Wikipedia
| Key people Jack Dorsey – born 1976 in St. Louis, Missouri. A technology entrepreneur best known as the CEO and co-founder of Square and Twitter. He is also a board member of the Governance Center of the Berggruen Institute. Dorsey is one of the most successful internet entrepreneurs with a net worth of over $10 billion. Source: Wikipedia Evan Williams – born 1972 in Clarks, Nebraska. Known as the former Chief Executive Officer of Twitter and CEO. Williams is also the co-founder of Twitter, Medium and Blogger. He and Meg Hourihan originally founded Pyra Labs, which was supposed to be a project management software but evolved into Blogger. Source: Wikipedia Biz Stone – born 1974 in Boston, Massachusetts. He is one of the co-founders of Twitter. He also worked as creative director at Xanga and co-founded Jelly with Ben Finkel. Stone served as CEO of Jelly until the company was acquired by Pinterest in 2017. Afterwards, Stone decided to come back and work for Twitter Inc. Source: Wikipedia Noah Glass – Date of birth unknown. Glass is an internet entrepreneur best known as the co-founder of Odeo and Twitter. He was instrumental in founding Twitter and naming the platform. Although his work was important in starting the company, he left the company in 2006. Source: Wikipedia Pavel Durov – born 1984 in Saint Petersburg. He is the founder of Telegram Messenger and VK. The internet entrepreneur is also a member of the Young Global Leaders Forum and the World Economic Forum. He was CEO of VK until 2014 and then decided to travel the world in exile. Nikolai Durov is his older brother and together they founded VK. Source: Wikipedia John Resig – born 1984 in Boston, Massachusetts. A JavaScript programming expert who developed jQuery. Resig worked on various JavaScript projects that are still essential to the development of the web. He also wrote two books about JavaScript: “Pro JavaScript Techniques” and “Secrets of the JavaScript Ninja”. He also works at Khan Academy, providing free education to people around the world. Source: Johnresig.com, Wikipedia Companies and technologies Important statistics |
2007
Developed by Apple Inc., the iPhone marked the turning point in the development of the mobile Internet. The first iPhone was released to the public with 4GB and 8GB storage options. They sold for $499 and $599 respectively.
Source: Wikipedia
Ermanno Pietrosemoli set the official world record for the largest Wi-Fi connection over 382 km.
Source: Cnet
Estonia used the Internet to vote in its parliamentary elections, becoming the first country in the world to use the Internet to vote.
Source: Wikipedia
Netflix has introduced its streaming services. Although Netflix was founded in 1997, its core offering was movie rentals. However, in 2007, the company introduced a new service called “Streaming” that allowed users to watch movies, TV shows, and documentaries instantly through their website. Netflix became the largest video streaming platform and is now synonymous with streaming.
Source: PopularMechanics.com
An electronic musician and sound designer from Sweden, Eric Wahlforss and Alexander Ljung founded 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 a researcher at the International Center for Theoretical Physics in Trieste. Ermanno has been spreading the Internet since its beginnings. He helped introduce low-cost technical solutions and wireless communications in countries such as the USA, Venezuela, Peru, Morocco, Mexico, Italy, Ecuador, Colombia, Argentina and so on. Source: IEEE.org Alexander Ljung – born 1981 in the United Kingdom. He is one of the co-founders of SoundCloud and its managing director and CEO. He is a music producer and motion film sound designer who specializes in post-production. Before founding SoundCloud, he worked at SF Anytime as a business and product developer. Source: Crunchbase Eric Wahlforss – Dates of birth unknown. One of the founders of SoundCloud. He is the company’s chief technology officer. In addition to his work in the company, he works full-time as a music artist and performs under the name “Fortress”. He also co-founded the web consulting network Strategy & Interaction before founding SoundCloud. Source: gotopia Drew Houston – born 1983 in Acton, Massachusetts. One of the co-founders of Dropbox and CEO of the company. This internet entrepreneur has a net worth of around $2.5 billion. Before founding Dropbox, he worked for various startups including HubSpot, Accolade and Bit9. He currently owns 25% of Dropbox. Source: Wikipedia Technologies & Companies statistics |
2008
Apple has launched its digital software marketplace for iOS devices called App Store.
Source: Wikipedia
At the same time, Google also launched its digital software market “Android Market” for devices with Android operating systems. This store was later named “Google Play”.
Source: Wikipedia
The first version of the Internet browser Google Chrome was released to the public by Google.
Source: Wikipedia
Satoshi Nakamoto created blockchain. It was designed to be a public transaction ledger for all transactions made via the cryptocurrency Bitcoin. There is speculation 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 developed blockchain and Bitcoin. This name is also the name behind the first blockchain database, the Bitcoin reference implementation and the Bitcoin white paper. He (she) is also responsible for implementing a peer-to-peer network to prevent double spending with digital currencies. Source: Wikipedia Technologies & Companies statistics |
2009
The pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto resurfaced to introduce Bitcoin to the world.
Source: Wikipedia
Evan Sharp, Paul Sciarra and Ben Silberman finished their work on creating Pinterest and launched the platform. It was originally intended as a photo-sharing website, but quickly evolved into a social network as well.
Source: Wikipedia
Google acquired the GrandCentral phone service and launched Google Voice. It’s basically an updated and renamed version of GrandCentral.
Source: Wikipedia
A messenger app called WhatsApp was founded.
Source: Wikipedia
Microsoft has launched its own search engine to complement Google – Bing.
Source: Wikipedia
Garret Camp and Travis Kalanick founded Uber in March.
Source: Wikipedia
TeliaSonera has publicly launched the 4G network. 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 developed blockchain and Bitcoin. This name is also the name behind the first blockchain database, the Bitcoin reference implementation and the Bitcoin white paper. He (she) is also responsible for implementing a peer-to-peer network to prevent double spending with digital currencies. Source: Wikipedia Travis Kalanick – born 1976 in Los Angeles, California. A successful businessman who co-founded Uber, Red Swoosh and Scour. He is also the former Chief Executive Officer of Uber. Due to the scandal that caused him to leave Uber, Kalanick also sold most of his shares in Uber. He is one of the richest people in the world. Source: Wikipedia Garrett Camp – born 1978 in Calgary, Alberta. Product designer and internet entrepreneur. He is best known as one of the co-founders of Uber and is also a board member of the company. He also founded many other successful companies, including StumbleUpon and Expa. Source: Wikipedia Technologies & Companies statistics |
To be continued