During the first two decades of the third millennium, the Internet has constantly renewed itself, interfering more and more each year with our lives. As we have entered a new decade since January 1, 2021, let's take a moment to peek in the rearview mirror, and another at the crystal ball to see how it might transform in the future.
2000s: from skyblogs to Facebook
In the early 2000s, website design was still not recommended for people with epilepsy: clearly, the Comic Sans MS font had not yet fallen out of favor. Not enough to prevent the Internet from spreading to a majority of homes. Easy to create, blogs are becoming widespread. So much so that with the arrival of the first iPhone in 2007, many observers wonder if blogs will not compete with journalists. Spoiler: not really.
This blogging trend benefits skyblogs, launched by Skyrock radio, which were as embarrassing after the fact as they were essential at the time. Yahoo! even tries to buy the French nugget for 400 million dollars in 2008, but Orbus, the parent company, refuses the deal. A missed opportunity to make these “homegrown” blogs shine internationally.
At the end of the 2000s, the results were bitter for the skyblogs: they were out of date… at high speed. Facebook, a social network launched by a Harvard student, became a global success. Mark Zuckerberg's company seemed to compete with Twitter for a while, but tweets from the network created by Jack Dorsey ultimately correspond to more professional or activist use. Result: sixteen years after the creation of Facebook, one in two people in the world is registered on a social network. For its part, Skyblog has only 16 million profiles . Cock-a-doodle Doo.
2010s: smartphone and streaming
“ Today, Apple will reinvent the phone. “When the first iPhone was released in 2007, Steve Jobs seemed to be doing tons of it. Not even: the touchscreen phone is such a revolution that all of Apple's competitors end up copying the California company. One thing and another, these devices accentuate the centrality of the Internet in our lives. Throughout the 2010s, the share of connections from smartphones increased, to the detriment of our good old computer. The latest annual Médiamétrie survey on the online practices of the French confirms this: now, four out of ten Internet users exclusively use their mobile to browse the web.
2000s: from skyblogs to Facebook
In the early 2000s, website design was still not recommended for people with epilepsy: clearly, the Comic Sans MS font had not yet fallen out of favor. Not enough to prevent the Internet from spreading to a majority of homes. Easy to create, blogs are becoming widespread. So much so that with the arrival of the first iPhone in 2007, many observers wonder if blogs will not compete with journalists. Spoiler: not really.
This blogging trend benefits skyblogs, launched by Skyrock radio, which were as embarrassing after the fact as they were essential at the time. Yahoo! even tries to buy the French nugget for 400 million dollars in 2008, but Orbus, the parent company, refuses the deal. A missed opportunity to make these “homegrown” blogs shine internationally.
At the end of the 2000s, the results were bitter for the skyblogs: they were out of date… at high speed. Facebook, a social network launched by a Harvard student, became a global success. Mark Zuckerberg's company seemed to compete with Twitter for a while, but tweets from the network created by Jack Dorsey ultimately correspond to more professional or activist use. Result: sixteen years after the creation of Facebook, one in two people in the world is registered on a social network. For its part, Skyblog has only 16 million profiles . Cock-a-doodle Doo.
2010s: smartphone and streaming
“ Today, Apple will reinvent the phone. “When the first iPhone was released in 2007, Steve Jobs seemed to be doing tons of it. Not even: the touchscreen phone is such a revolution that all of Apple's competitors end up copying the California company. One thing and another, these devices accentuate the centrality of the Internet in our lives. Throughout the 2010s, the share of connections from smartphones increased, to the detriment of our good old computer. The latest annual Médiamétrie survey on the online practices of the French confirms this: now, four out of ten Internet users exclusively use their mobile to browse the web.
Digital technology is changing not only connection practices, but also consumption. Faced with the rise of Amazon and, more generally, online shopping services, stores are starting to be shunned. Like them, television, cinema and music are also facing competition and being transformed by new digital uses. From YouTube videos to Spotify playlists to Netflix series, streaming is becoming popular, to the chagrin of DVD rental companies and CD sellers.
Social interactions, trade, mode of communication and consumption of artistic works: in two decades, the Internet has radically changed all sectors of the economy, or almost.
2020-2030: 5G, one more step towards the metaverse?
Accused of being part of a large global conspiracy and of having a significant ecological cost , 5G should, despite the mistrust it arouses, take hold everywhere during the coming decade. For its supporters, it will bring its share of innovations in different areas: smart homes and cities, autonomous vehicles and improved medical monitoring. A giant step towards everything connected. A priori, 5G speeds should be up to 10 times higher than those of 4G. The Regional Frequencies Agency , for its part, estimates that this service will benefit in particular the autonomous car, telesurgery or virtual reality.
The digitization of our daily lives, which has been accentuated with the health crisis , could therefore be reinforced even more with 5G. What bring up to date the old fantasy of the metaverse. A concept that smells like the nineties since it was imagined by Neal Stephenson in his novel The Virtual Samurai ( Snow Crash in VO), released in 1992.
In the 2000s, the success of the virtual world of Second Life had revived the idea of a digital universe parallel to ours. The hype for this game eventually faded, even though its creator, Philip Rosedale, is now working on an even more ambitious virtual reality project .
With confinements, which reminded us of the omnipotence of digital technology, the idea of a collective cyberspace has returned to the fore. Because in just one year, a lot has changed. Tim Sweeney, the creator of Fortnite , replied on December 26, 2019 on Twitter that his video game was just a game , but he invited to ask him the question again the following year.
What has happened since? Rapper Travis Scott performed at a Fornite gig in front of millions of players, and the trailer for the movie Tenet premiered there. A year later, Tim Sweeney therefore clarified his thinking : “ Fortnite is a game… mainly. But with every update and new creative map, it gets closer to a place and a platform. 2021 will be a very interesting year for that! "
At a time when Facebook must announce the upcoming release of Facebook Horizon, its virtual reality social network project , on which the company has been working for several years already, the old fantasy of the metaverse has never been so close to itself. shape.