Thursday, December 31, 2009

The 2000s decade in review

We never did settle on a name for the first decade of the new millennium, but now it’s over.
Many media organizations have put out summaries of the decade, which has been called the 2000s or the Aughts.
Here is an aggregation of mostly technology, business and entertainment top 10 lists from the decade:

Phillip Niemeyer, an art director at design studio Double Triple, created a simple picture-grid chart that sums up the past decade. See above, by way of the New York Times.

AFP published a good article called “Curtain falling on ‘Digital Decade’” on Dec. 27. It sums up the decade that started with the Y2K computer glitch and dot-com bubble and has since brought us iPods, iPhones, Flip camcorders, Kindles, and GPS navigation devices. The decade also brought us Wikipedia, Facebook and YouTube.

Yahoo interviewed fourth-grade students in Orange County, Calif., for their perspectives on the decade. The students were all born in 2000. Yahoo then made a video called “The decade according to 9-year-olds.” It’s by turns sad, enlightening and funny. The video is part of Yahoo’s “Decade in Review.”

Newsweek has a fun article called “Unknown in ’99, Indispensible Now” that’s written by guest writers. Actor William Shatner raves about airline self check-in.

Time magazine published a list of “The 10 Biggest Tech Failures of the Last Decade.” Of course, Microsoft’s Windows Vista leads the list, followed by PC maker Gateway and losing high-def movie format HD DVD.

In a similar vein, Gizmodo compiled a list of “The 50 Worst Gadgets of the Decade.”

Huffington Post put together a photo essay called “12 Things That Became Obsolete This Decade.” The list includes fax machines and landline phones.

On a positive note, PCmag.com saluted the most important technologies, products and services in its “Best of the Decade” article. The most important products included Google, and Apple’s iPhone and iPod.
PCmag.com also picked its “Most Influential People of the Decade,” starting with Apple CEO Steve Jobs.

I also liked John McCrea’s post “Silicon Valley: Top 10 of the 2000s.” He includes the dot-com bubble collapse, Google’s IPO, YouTube and Facebook, among others.

From the entertainment beat, here are some other lists summarizing the decade that was:

Movie critics Michael Phillips and A.O. Scott of “At the Movies” list their “Best of the Decade Top 10.”

GeekTyrant runs down its “Top 30 TV Shows of the Last Decade” and “11 Incredibly Talented Breakout Directors of the Last Decade.”

Celebuzz has “The 20 Greatest Celebrity Mug Shots of the Decade.”

Huffington Post has “Sex Tapes Of The Past Decade: A Look At The Noughties’ Naughtiest.”

No comments: