Illinois Technology Partnership: 2000 – 2010: The Tech Decade
1. Many technologies all of us use day-to-day and most of us can’t imagine living without, were introduced between 2000 and 2010. Here’s a quick snapshot:
2001: Wikipedia was born and the iPod made its debut
2003: Facebook came to fruition
2005: YouTube was launched
2006: Twitter was unveiled
2007: The iPhone hit the scene
2010: The first tablets were released
2. No doubt, the past decade saw several significant evolutions in technology, including: from desktop to laptop to tablet and from car phone to cell phone to smartphone. As a result…
3. Americans are cutting the cord. More than one in every four households has only wireless telephones. Nearly one in every six homes receives all or almost all calls on a wireless phone, despite having a landline.
4. And, we’re going mobile! Today, 91% of Americans use a cell phone. In 2010 alone, Twitter mobile usage increased 367% and there were 200 million Facebook mobile users. 5 billion mobile applications and 100 million YouTube videos were downloaded to mobile phones each day. The trend shows no signs of slowing down, Fortune reports that in 2011, smartphones are likely to surpass traditional computers as the way most of the world accesses the Internet.
5. More and more people are getting connected. Today, two thirds of all American households have access to broadband, as compared to 5% 10 years ago.
6. We’re going online for everything from shopping: e-commerce reached $32.9 billion in 2010, up 9% from a year ago.
7. To entertainment: 2 billion videos are watched on YouTube each day and every minute, 24 hours of video is uploaded to the site. To work: 99% of US workers connect to the Internet through broadband.
8. Tech businesses are growing. In 2011, 50% of technology companies responded in a recent survey that they anticipate hiring between at least 1 and 20 full-time employees, up 20% from last year.
9. And creating JOBS. Planned investments in broadband, smart grid, network operations centers and wireless infrastructure are anticipated to create jobs in areas including mobile and wireless technology, construction, engineering, information technology, administration and sales.
10. The good news…options are increasing and prices are going down: 96% of consumers in the United State can choose from 3 or more mobile service providers, and the average local monthly cell phone bill continues to fall 4.2% year-over-year.
This post was written by Lindsay Mosher of the Illinois Technology Partnership: The Illinois Technology Partnership is the Illinois-based project of Midwest Consumers for Choice and Competition, a non-profit organization of individual consumers interested in technology, broadband, and telecommunication issues with state projects throughout the Midwest region. ITP brings together industry experts, thought leaders, and Illinois consumers to foster an environment that will encourage emerging technologies, jobs, and investment, and spur economic growth on the state and local level.