We streamed, we zoomed, we ordered groceries and houseplants online, we created virtual villages while avoiding laptop shortages to work and learn at home.
When it comes to technology, 2020 was a year like no other – and as the world had to adapt to the coronavirus pandemic, some tech companies gained a lot while others lost.
Losers
Virtual reality
As the world adjusted to a new reality stuck in the home, the pandemic could have been the virtual reality’s chance to escape. With the use of special headsets and equipment such as gloves, the technology allows people to interact with a 360-degree view of a three-dimensional environment, seemingly well suited for people trapped indoors.
But people turned to easier to use software and games they already had. Few rushed to spend hundreds of dollars on a clunky new headset or tried to learn the ropes of virtual reality conference software. And no VR games broke into the mainstream. So virtual reality, on the brink of success for decades, missed its moment again.
Social Media Election Labels
It was the year of the labels on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and even TikTok. Ahead of the Nov. 3 US presidential election, the companies pledged to curtail election misinformation, including unfounded allegations of fraud and candidates’ early statements of victory. And the most visible part of this was the plethora of labels placed on tweets, posts, photos and videos.
“Some or all of the content shared in this Tweet has been disputed and may be misleading about an election or other civic process,” reads a typical label applied to a tweet by President Donald Trump.
But many experts said that while the labels appeared to be pretending that the companies were taking action, “it turned out to be pretty ineffective in the end,” as Jennifer Grygiel, a professor at Syracuse University and social media expert, said.
which
Less than a year ago, Quibi launched a rousing Super Bowl ad that asked the question “What’s a Quibi?” People may still be scratching their heads.
Quibi, short for “quick bites,” raised $ 1.75 billion from investors including major Hollywood players Disney, NBCUniversal and Viacom.
Quibi founder Jeffrey Katzenberg raised $ 1.75 billion from investors but closed the company in October, just six months after launching in April. [File: Taylor Jewell/AP Photo]
But the service struggled to reach viewers as there are many short videos on the internet and the coronavirus pandemic kept many people at home. It announced it would shut down in October, just months after its April launch.
Uber and Lyft
Fresh off their first public offerings the year before and still struggling to show that they could be profitable, taxi services were shattered by the pandemic in 2020, when people stopped taking cars and huddled at home.
In May, Uber laid off 3,700 people, or about 14 percent of the workforce. Lyft also announced job cuts.
But there are some signs of hope. After significantly cutting costs through Q2 restructuring, Lyft said last month it expects to have its first profitable quarter by the end of 2021.
Fresh off their first public offerings from the year before and still struggling to show they could be profitable, the 2020 pandemic hit taxi services as people hailed fewer rides [File: Michael Dwyer/AP Photo]
And the companies got a big win in California, where voters passed Proposition 22 and allowed them an exception to a law that wanted to classify their drivers as employees, an expense analysts believed would have their business in the country’s most populous state. destroyed. .
US TikTok ban
While India banned the popular video-sharing app, in the US, TikTok appears to have nearly expired Donald Trump’s tenure without the president succeeding in his efforts to ban it.
Earlier this month, a federal judge blocked a possible ban. It was the latest legal defeat for the government in its efforts to wrestle the app from its Chinese owners. In October, another federal judge delayed a closure scheduled for November.
Many artists like choreographer Netta Yerushalmy have turned to social media to share their work during the coronavirus pandemic, posting music and artwork on Instagram [File: Mary Altaffer/AP Photo]
Meanwhile, the government’s deadline for ByteDance, the parent of TikTok, to sign a deal whereby Oracle and Walmart would invest in TikTok has also passed, with the status of the deal being unclear.
While President-elect Joe Biden has said that TikTok is a concern, it is not clear what his administration will do with the Trump administration’s attempts to impose a ban.
Winners
Nintendo Switch
Even in a year of smashing new consoles from Xbox and PlayStation announced, the Nintendo Switch was the console that could. The Switch launched in 2017 and became a fast seller. That was helped by the launch of the Handled Switch Lite in September 2019.
In March, it became difficult to find a Switch, as people looked for ways to be entertained at home. Its popularity was boosted by the release of the island simulation game “Animal Crossing: New Horizons”, which debuted March 20 and has now sold a total of 26 million copies worldwide, according to Nintendo.
According to the NPD Group, Nintendo Switch sold 6.92 million copies in the US in the first 11 months of 2020. It was the best-selling console in units sold for 24 consecutive months – a record.
According to the NPD Group, Nintendo Switch sold 6.92 million copies in the US in the first 11 months of 2020. [File: Steven Senne/AP Photo]Zoom
All video conferencing software – from Microsoft Teams to WebEx – thrived during the abrupt shift of tens of millions of people to remote work and education during a pandemic. But only one became a verb.
Zoom Video Communications was a relatively unknown company before the pandemic hit, but its ease of use led to wide acceptance during the pandemic.
There were some growing pains, including lax security that led to “Zoom bombing” early on. The company has overhauled its security and remains one of the popular platforms for hosting meetings and classes remotely.
Ransomware Vendors
The ransomware scourge – in which criminals hold data hostage by encrypting it until victims pay – reached epic dimensions in 2020, closely following the COVID-19 scourge. In Germany, a patient who turned away from the emergency room of a hospital whose IT system was paralyzed by an attack died on the way to another hospital.
In the US, attacks on healthcare facilities were on track to nearly double from 50 in 2019. Attacks on state and local governments increased by about 50 percent to more than 150. Even gymnasiums have been affected – distance learning for students from Baltimore to Las Vegas.
Cybersecurity firm Emsisoft estimates the cost of US ransomware attacks in the US alone this year at more than $ 9 billion between ransom paid and downtime / recovery.
Computer manufacturers
After starting the year to grapple with annoying delays in their supply chains, the PC industry struggled to keep up with the rising demand for machines that became indispensable during a pandemic that kept millions of workers and students at home.
The outbreak initially hampered production because computer manufacturers could not get the necessary parts from overseas factories that shut down during the early stages of the health crisis.
After facing nasty delays in their supply chains in early 2020, the PC industry struggled to keep up with the rising demand for machines while people worked and learned from home [File: Kathy Willens/AP Photo]
Those closures contributed to a sharp drop in sales during the first three months of the year. But it has been boom times ever since.
The July-September period has been particularly robust, with US computer shipments up 11 percent from the same time in 2019 – the industry’s largest quarterly revenue increase in a decade, according to research firm Gartner.
E-commerce
The largest of the bunch, Amazon is one of the few companies that got it right during the coronavirus outbreak. People have turned to it to order groceries, supplies, and other items online, driving the company to record sales and profits between April and June. That came even though it had to spend $ 4 billion on cleaning supplies and to pay employees overtime and bonuses.
But it’s not just Amazon. The pandemic is accelerating the transition to online shopping, one trend experts expect to say, even after vaccines allow the world to resume normal life.
People have turned to Amazon to order groceries, toiletries and other items online, driving the company to record sales between April and June. [File: Steven Senne/AP Photo]
And thanks in part to shoppers who consciously support small businesses, Adobe Analytics says online sales at smaller US retailers are up 349 percent on Thanksgiving and Black Friday.
At the more than 1 million businesses using Shopify to build their websites, sales are up 75 percent from a year ago to $ 2.4 billion on Black Friday, according to Shopify.
Jury is out
Great technology
Facebook, Amazon, Apple and Google performed well financially: stock prices and earnings of each company have risen significantly since the beginning of the year. They won users, introduced new products and features, and continued to hire people even as other companies and industries faced significant cutbacks.
But not everything is going well in the world of Big Tech. Regulators are breathing down the neck of any company and that is unlikely to ease in 2021. Google is facing an antitrust case from the Justice Department. And Facebook has been hit by one from the Federal Trade Commission, along with almost every US state trying to split it off from WhatsApp and Instagram.
More cases may follow. Congressional investigators have spent months investigating the actions of Apple and Amazon, in addition to Facebook and Google, and have called on the CEOs of all four companies to testify.