Best selling author Thomas Friedman put forth this opinion in his new book; agree or disagree? I find it interesting, though one could argue the changes brought forth by this tech boom weren't really noticeable until 2009-2010.

http://www.cnbc.com/2016/11/22/your-world-changed-forever-in-2007-with-iphone-and-tech-boom-thomas-friedman.html

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/nov/27/2007-not-2016-year-world-turned-upside-down-rapid-technological-change

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/20/opinion/sunday/dancing-in-a-hurricane.html

-1st Gen iPhone launches, allowing billions of people easy access to the Internet - many of which had never used the Internet before, and caused a shift in Internet culture. Some early 2000s Internet users are resentful of this shift and feel it was their generation's own "Eternal September".
-YouTube, which was already popular in 2006, here starts to become "connected" to the real world, as the 2007-08 Presidential debates are broadcast from there on CNN and the BBC.
-The Big Bang Theory debuts popularizing "geek culture"
-Tumblr founded
-Kindle and Android introduced
-(Technically late 2006) Facebook allows non-college emails to register, causing a mass influx of users that leave Myspace.
-In 2007, MySpace reports their first significant decrease in traffic; Facebook reports their first significant increase in traffic. No doubt a result of Facebook's late 2006 shift (*snickers*).
-Windows Vista released; Aero, along with the iPhone, popularizes shiny, futuristic GUI design that can still be seen in tech to this day (albeit in a simplified, "flatter" design)
-Twitter gains massive popularity after a marketing campaign at SXSW festival
-NSA launches PRISM Internet-spying program
-Hadoop emerged as a software framework for processing very large data sets; the idea of "The Cloud" in computing really began to take off around this time
-CRT monitors experience a decline in sales, being surpassed by LCD monitors. CRTs saw a slight sales comeback in 2008 but plunged into the abyss from 2009 onward
-Netflix began online streaming; Blockbuster experiences an acceleration of their previously slower decline.

Yes, 2007 was an unusually pivotal year in the advancement in technology. I felt like I was really thrust into the future that year.

In addition to the points you brought up, 2007 was also when Netflix began offering streaming services, thus beginning the revolution that eventually fermented streamed television shows as the primary form of free time entertainment.

Yeah, I agree with Thomas Friedman. The world will never return to the state that it was before 2007, in terms of technology and the Internet. 2007 started the change that eventually end up coming into full effect in the early 2010s (around 2011 or 2012).

I like your new signature Reign. The designs are very 50s/60s.

All of a sudden 2007 sounds accurate to this. Haha I'll agree with my memories of YouTube and Myspace's immense presence at the time.

I like your new signature Reign. The designs are very 50s/60s.

Thanks Zelek! :). Yeah, the design is called Googie and was popular in the 1950s and early 1960s.

All of a sudden 2007 sounds accurate to this. Haha I'll agree with my memories of YouTube and Myspace's immense presence at the time.

True but I was pointing out how MySpace began to slightly decrease in popularity in favor of Facebook around this time.

Don't forget the 7th generation of consoles and the explosion of online gaming. That was the biggest change to me!

Don't forget the 7th generation of consoles and the explosion of online gaming.

Technically the 7th generation of consoles came out in 2005(360) and 2006(Wii and PS3) but 2007 was probably its first plentiful year, with landmark titles released such as Super Mario Galaxy, Bisohock, Crysis, Modern Warfare 2, Portal, Halo 3, etc.

Best selling author Thomas Friedman put forth this opinion in his new book; agree or disagree? I find it interesting, though one could argue the changes brought forth by this tech boom weren't really noticeable until 2009-2010.

http://www.cnbc.com/2016/11/22/your-world-changed-forever-in-2007-with-iphone-and-tech-boom-thomas-friedman.html

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/nov/27/2007-not-2016-year-world-turned-upside-down-rapid-technological-change

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/20/opinion/sunday/dancing-in-a-hurricane.html

-1st Gen iPhone launches, allowing billions of people easy access to the Internet - many of which had never used the Internet before, and caused a shift in Internet culture. Some early 2000s Internet users are resentful of this shift and feel it was their generation's own "Eternal September".
-YouTube, which was already popular in 2006, here starts to become "connected" to the real world, as the 2007-08 Presidential debates are broadcast from there on CNN and the BBC.
-The Big Bang Theory debuts popularizing "geek culture"
-Tumblr founded
-Kindle and Android introduced
-(Technically late 2006) Facebook allows non-college emails to register, causing a mass influx of users that leave Myspace.
-In 2007, MySpace reports their first significant decrease in traffic; Facebook reports their first significant increase in traffic. No doubt a result of Facebook's late 2006 shift (*snickers*).
-Windows Vista released; Aero, along with the iPhone, popularizes shiny, futuristic GUI design that can still be seen in tech to this day (albeit in a simplified, "flatter" design)
-Twitter gains massive popularity after a marketing campaign at SXSW festival
-NSA launches PRISM Internet-spying program
-Hadoop emerged as a software framework for processing very large data sets; the idea of "The Cloud" in computing really began to take off around this time
-CRT monitors experience a decline in sales, being surpassed by LCD monitors. CRTs saw a slight sales comeback in 2008 but plunged into the abyss from 2009 onward
-Netflix began online streaming; Blockbuster experiences an acceleration of their previously slower decline.


more and more people are using Netflix, regular TV has become the thing of the past.

All of a sudden 2007 sounds accurate to this. Haha I'll agree with my memories of YouTube and Myspace's immense presence at the time.


2007 was definitely still a MySpace year.  Facebook actually didn't overtake it until 2009.  MySpace then died nearly overnight in 2010.

Best selling author Thomas Friedman put forth this opinion in his new book; agree or disagree? I find it interesting, though one could argue the changes brought forth by this tech boom weren't really noticeable until 2009-2010.

http://www.cnbc.com/2016/11/22/your-world-changed-forever-in-2007-with-iphone-and-tech-boom-thomas-friedman.html

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/nov/27/2007-not-2016-year-world-turned-upside-down-rapid-technological-change

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/20/opinion/sunday/dancing-in-a-hurricane.html

-1st Gen iPhone launches, allowing billions of people easy access to the Internet - many of which had never used the Internet before, and caused a shift in Internet culture. Some early 2000s Internet users are resentful of this shift and feel it was their generation's own "Eternal September".
-YouTube, which was already popular in 2006, here starts to become "connected" to the real world, as the 2007-08 Presidential debates are broadcast from there on CNN and the BBC.
-The Big Bang Theory debuts popularizing "geek culture"
-Tumblr founded
-Kindle and Android introduced
-(Technically late 2006) Facebook allows non-college emails to register, causing a mass influx of users that leave Myspace.
-In 2007, MySpace reports their first significant decrease in traffic; Facebook reports their first significant increase in traffic. No doubt a result of Facebook's late 2006 shift (*snickers*).
-Windows Vista released; Aero, along with the iPhone, popularizes shiny, futuristic GUI design that can still be seen in tech to this day (albeit in a simplified, "flatter" design)
-Twitter gains massive popularity after a marketing campaign at SXSW festival
-NSA launches PRISM Internet-spying program
-Hadoop emerged as a software framework for processing very large data sets; the idea of "The Cloud" in computing really began to take off around this time
-CRT monitors experience a decline in sales, being surpassed by LCD monitors. CRTs saw a slight sales comeback in 2008 but plunged into the abyss from 2009 onward
-Netflix began online streaming; Blockbuster experiences an acceleration of their previously slower decline.


Yeah, I think that's spot on. There's not much I can add to it, as you pretty much covered everything about why 2007 was such a pivotal year.

What I would say is that I think the biggest revolution of the 2007 era was the rise of YouTube to mainstream acceptance, and the decision of Netflix to begin integrating streaming video as part of their service. Not only did that destroy video stores like Blockbuster, but it has basically destroyed DVD sales as a whole. Plus, as we're now seeing the rise of online television services like YouTube TV, online streaming has started to destroy traditional television as well. There's no doubt to me that future people will look back on the rise of streaming video during the late '00s as a key transitional moment of entertainment history.

Yeah, I think that's spot on. There's not much I can add to it, as you pretty much covered everything about why 2007 was such a pivotal year.

What I would say is that I think the biggest revolution of the 2007 era was the rise of YouTube to mainstream acceptance, and the decision of Netflix to begin integrating streaming video as part of their service. Not only did that destroy video stores like Blockbuster, but it has basically destroyed DVD sales as a whole. Plus, as we're now seeing the rise of online television services like YouTube TV, online streaming has started to destroy traditional television as well. There's no doubt to me that future people will look back on the rise of streaming video during the late '00s as a key transitional moment of entertainment history.

Youtube was already mainstream in 2006 but as I said, 2007 was when media networks, news, politicians, etc. began to see there was money to be made from it.

Blockbuster was already slowly declining from 2000 to 2006, but I do believe Netflix streaming in 2007 is what accelerated their decline, essentially killing them by 2010 and forcing them to file for bankruptcy.

Yeah, I think that's spot on. There's not much I can add to it, as you pretty much covered everything about why 2007 was such a pivotal year.

What I would say is that I think the biggest revolution of the 2007 era was the rise of YouTube to mainstream acceptance, and the decision of Netflix to begin integrating streaming video as part of their service. Not only did that destroy video stores like Blockbuster, but it has basically destroyed DVD sales as a whole. Plus, as we're now seeing the rise of online television services like YouTube TV, online streaming has started to destroy traditional television as well. There's no doubt to me that future people will look back on the rise of streaming video during the late '00s as a key transitional moment of entertainment history.


I definitely agree that traditional TV is a thing of the past and people now look for their fix on online streaming.

2007 was definitely still a MySpace year.  Facebook actually didn't overtake it until 2009.  MySpace then died nearly overnight in 2010.


In my community, Myspace became associated with Ice Box, Omarion's 2007 hit. I remember my best friend literally going to a girl's page as she had Ice Box as her profile them. I even ran into a comment on the video "Everyone had this as their Myspace profile theme" not too long ago.

It was a fun year!  :)  :)  :)

Youtube was already mainstream in 2006 but as I said, 2007 was when media networks, news, politicians, etc. began to see there was money to be made from it.

Blockbuster was already slowly declining from 2000 to 2006, but I do believe Netflix streaming in 2007 is what accelerated their decline, essentially killing them by 2010 and forcing them to file for bankruptcy.


I still went to Blockbuster as late as early 2009 but suddenly stopped going in late 2009.  I think I only went once around 2011 or so and never went back after that.  It was a combination of Netflix, Redbox, Internet piracy, and cheaper DVDs that contributed.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure that Blockbuster was still doing quite well for most of the '00s. Actually, I think I read somewhere that 2005 was arguably the most profitable year they'd had up to that point. To some extent, the video business actually picked up a little during the early and mid '00s because people started buying DVD players, and thus had a need to buy movies on DVD that they already owned on VHS.

Blockbuster's profits plummeted quick during the late '00s and early '10s, and there's nothing other than the rise of streaming video that could be blamed.

Blockbuster's profits plummeted quick during the late '00s and early '10s, and there's nothing other than the rise of streaming video that could be blamed.


Blockbuster had the opportunity to offer a streaming service as well as set up kiosks a-la Redbox and they opted to focus on their traditional model.  One thing that stands out about Blockbuster was how fast they collapsed.  It wasn't a slow bleed like it is with a lot of failing businesses.  It was all within the matter of a few years, in the early '10s.

Here is an excellent video that details what happened to the company.

5sMXR7rK40U

Blockbuster had the opportunity to offer a streaming service as well as set up kiosks a-la Redbox and they opted to focus on their traditional model.  One thing that stands out about Blockbuster was how fast they collapsed.  It wasn't a slow bleed like it is with a lot of failing businesses.  It was all within the matter of a few years, in the early '10s.

Here is an excellent video that details what happened to the company.

5sMXR7rK40U


Could Blockbuster have succeeded?  ???

I'm okay with 2007 being known as the year that changed technology in terms of inventions. Frankly, the early and mid 2000s were really similar in terms of technology, so I'm at least glad that it's not together with the late 2000s that much.

Yes, 2007 was an unusually pivotal year in the advancement in technology. I felt like I was really thrust into the future that year.

In addition to the points you brought up, 2007 was also when Netflix began offering streaming services, thus beginning the revolution that eventually fermented streamed television shows as the primary form of free time entertainment.


Yeah looking back 2007 seemed to be the year that we were entering 'the future' in a sense. It still had a bit of a classic 2000's ambiance, mixed in with the up in coming modern trends at the time. Some things that brings me back 2007!:

-Getting a Nintendo Wii for my 11th birthday and being blown away by motion controls with games like Wii Sports, Wii Play, & Twilight Princess being some of the first I obtained with my console. Then being blown away for Christmas of 2007 with arguably, the greatest 3-D platformer ever created Super Mario Galaxy

-My family getting our first HDTV that year, we still use it to this day. Its a 1080p Samsung Flat Screen

-Going to a new Summer camp that year and having tons memories making arts and crafts, swimming in the pool, playing teaderball, collaborating with a kid I met there by making a script for a movie (we were ambitious ;D)

-Scrolling via the Apple website and looking through reports of the newly reales iPhone and being blown away (I've been saying that a lot already ;D, but it goes to show how revolutionary this year was in many ways), and using it a Kiosk at an Apple Store for the first time that year

-Getting my sister's handy down Discman

-Playing Pokemon Diamond & Pearl on the D.S ;)


It's crazy to think that this is now 10 years ago, the year still seems pretty fresh in the grand scheme of things.

2007 was definitely still a MySpace year.  Facebook actually didn't overtake it until 2009.  MySpace then died nearly overnight in 2010.

Hmm, interesting. I always heard that 2007 was when Facebook reported its first major increase in traffic and when Myspace reported its first major decrease in traffic. I've also heard people say that, in their area at least, Myspace was dead by 2007-08 and everyone had moved on to Facebook.

Hmm, interesting. I always heard that 2007 was when Facebook reported its first major increase in traffic and when Myspace reported its first major decrease in traffic. I've also heard people say that, in their area at least, Myspace was dead by 2007-08 and everyone had moved on to Facebook.


In the US, both 2007-08 and 2008-09 were Myspace years. It was at the end of 2008-09 that Facebook overtook Myspace.

I was looking through my old posts on the Gamespot forums from the late 2000s, and I found this interesting thread from July 2009. ;D

https://www.gamespot.com/forums/offtopic-discussion-314159273/myspace-or-facebook-which-is-better-26943674/

Back then, my 16 year old self thought MySpace for bitchy teenagers while Facebook was for mature people such as myself.  ;D

Hmm, interesting. I always heard that 2007 was when Facebook reported its first major increase in traffic and when Myspace reported its first major decrease in traffic. I've also heard people say that, in their area at least, Myspace was dead by 2007-08 and everyone had moved on to Facebook.


2007 was certainly still a MySpace year, but I remember noticing even at the time that there was a growing popularity for Facebook among college kids at the time. 2008 always seemed like the year to me where Facebook began to overtake MySpace because that was when my mom started her Facebook account. As soon as your mom is using something, you know it's arrived.

I figure this doesn't help towards my late 20s crisis because it does feel to me that "10 years ago" used to feel like 10 years ago back in the mid 00s because the 90s were very different.

But now 10 years ago doesn't really feel like 10 years ago because it feels so familiar and similar.

2007, the year I was 17 and was at the beginning of being an adult.

I wish I was at the beginning again, I never had the teenage life I wanted. Didn't have any friends that were girls or even male friends really.

That's the one thing in life, you can never ever go back and relive it. Now I just look for memories from those days gone by.

I figure that's why I hang around this place with you nerds, huh ;D

It seems that Jean Twenge, psychologist, also agrees with me that 2007 was a social shift in many ways, primarily due to the release of the iPhone.

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/09/has-the-smartphone-destroyed-a-generation/534198/

Blockbuster had the opportunity to offer a streaming service as well as set up kiosks a-la Redbox and they opted to focus on their traditional model.  One thing that stands out about Blockbuster was how fast they collapsed.  It wasn't a slow bleed like it is with a lot of failing businesses.  It was all within the matter of a few years, in the early '10s.


It's interesting that Blockbuster died so quickly in the US. They still exist in Australia, although they are gradually dying. The last Blockbuster store in Sydney is closing at the end of this month, I believe.

http://www.blockbuster.com.au/kiosks/

- By 2010. The iPhone had sold 26 Million
  units, combined. For reference, the
  combined sales of BlackBerry and
  Motorola Razr phones from 2007
  onwards were 50+ Million and 100+
  Million respectively by the end of that
  same year. The iPhone's impact on the
  late 00s is being grossly overstated. Many
  people spoke of it, but not many people
  owned it. If we're being realistic, then the
  BlackBerry was the symbol of the new
  increasingly connected generation.

- Google, the biggest tech giant of the 00's
  did not acknowledge Twitter's existence
  until late 2009 when they incorporated
  Twitter news updates into Google search
  results. This led to a massive boom in
  popularity that only exelerated in 2010
  when Twitter officially released its own
  mobile app. There were statistics taken in
  mid 2009 showing Twitter's demographic
  consisting of celebrities, many of which
  did not follow anyone, small groups of
  30+ year olds, and large numbers of
  empty or inactive accounts.
  Teen and 20-something members were a
  rarity as active members of the site.
  Twitter did not become a major
  player against Facebook and Myspace
  until the early 2010s.

- Netflix began streaming in 2007, but it
  was their delivery subscription service,
  which peaked in the late 00s, that was the
  initial killer of Blockbuster.
  In fact, Netflix was the reason for
  Blockbuster's decline before they even
  began streaming films. It's worth noting
  that 2010 was the year Netflix streaming
  became available outside of the United
  States which resulted in an
  unprecedented subscription boom for the
  service.

- Not sure what the significance of Tumblr
  was  in 2007. The biggest blog
  website by 2009 was Blogspot by a wide
  margin. Tumblr's first hint of recognition
  by the press came in August 2010 when it
  was named as a finalist in Lead411's New
  York City Hot 125. It grew rapidly from
  there.

-  Many strides were made in cloud
  computing in the late 00s. Amazon's
  Elastic Compute Cloud, released as a
  beta in 2006 and fully released in 2008
  was the first publically available cloud
  service.
  However, the second ever cloud service to
  receive a general availability release,
  responsible for popularizing the viability
  of cloud computing was Microsoft's
  Azure, launched in February 2010. It was
  only then that a flurry tech companies
  began to follow suit with Rackspace
  Hosting and NASA jointly launching Open-
  stack in July 2010, IBM Smartcloud in
  2011, and Orocle Cloud in 2012. The only
  other early cloud compute software
  released before Azure was Google App
  engine beta in 2008, that didn't even get a
  preview release until 2012.

Actually, it was September 1, 2006, 12:00:00 AM.

I will never forget where I was and what I was doing at that exact time. Everything changed completely. The world just sucked and everything was never the same.

I will never forget the pre-9/1/2006 world. I'm going to tell this story to my kids, my grandkids, and for many new generations to come about this shift that completely changed the world forever. The effects of the late 2006 shift can still be felt to this day.

In my community, Myspace became associated with Ice Box, Omarion's 2007 hit. I remember my best friend literally going to a girl's page as she had Ice Box as her profile them. I even ran into a comment on the video "Everyone had this as their Myspace profile theme" not too long ago.

Facebook was released in Aug 2006 to the public,  it gained steam in Feb 2007

Myspace was still king tho, but Facebook was gaining a lot of steam in those first few months of 2007

Haha the year everyone was shook at the new touchscreens with your fingers instead of a stylus. 11 years later, nobody gives a thought about it. How things have changed :p

Best selling author Thomas Friedman put forth this opinion in his new book; agree or disagree? I find it interesting, though one could argue the changes brought forth by this tech boom weren't really noticeable until 2009-2010.

http://www.cnbc.com/2016/11/22/your-world-changed-forever-in-2007-with-iphone-and-tech-boom-thomas-friedman.html

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/nov/27/2007-not-2016-year-world-turned-upside-down-rapid-technological-change

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/20/opinion/sunday/dancing-in-a-hurricane.html

-1st Gen iPhone launches, allowing billions of people easy access to the Internet - many of which had never used the Internet before, and caused a shift in Internet culture. Some early 2000s Internet users are resentful of this shift and feel it was their generation's own "Eternal September".
-YouTube, which was already popular in 2006, here starts to become "connected" to the real world, as the 2007-08 Presidential debates are broadcast from there on CNN and the BBC.
-The Big Bang Theory debuts popularizing "geek culture"
-Tumblr founded
-Kindle and Android introduced
-(Technically late 2006) Facebook allows non-college emails to register, causing a mass influx of users that leave Myspace.
-In 2007, MySpace reports their first significant decrease in traffic; Facebook reports their first significant increase in traffic. No doubt a result of Facebook's late 2006 shift (*snickers*).
-Windows Vista released; Aero, along with the iPhone, popularizes shiny, futuristic GUI design that can still be seen in tech to this day (albeit in a simplified, "flatter" design)
-Twitter gains massive popularity after a marketing campaign at SXSW festival
-NSA launches PRISM Internet-spying program
-Hadoop emerged as a software framework for processing very large data sets; the idea of "The Cloud" in computing really began to take off around this time
-CRT monitors experience a decline in sales, being surpassed by LCD monitors. CRTs saw a slight sales comeback in 2008 but plunged into the abyss from 2009 onward
-Netflix began online streaming; Blockbuster experiences an acceleration of their previously slower decline.

I feel like the stuff I highlighted didn't become popular/didn't actually affect anything until 2009-2011.

I feel like the stuff I highlighted didn't become popular/didn't actually affect anything until 2009-2011.

Facebook became super popular in early 2007, in New York it was very very new and people were using it.