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By Joe Klein

It’s a new year, and a new decade! But what a decade the first one of the new century has been. It’s been a turbulent ten years of ups, downs and “up-agains!”

It’s hard to believe that it’s been a whole decade since Y2K came in without incident, followed by a burst of the tech bubble. But tech’s dominance of our landscape continued to grow despite the decline of tech stocks. The internet was now fully embedded by the turn of the century, and record numbers were going online to keep up with all things going on around them. The internet joined cable and satellite television in bringing the world into our homes and desktops, giving us an around-the-clock front row seat to all the good and evil the world has to offer.

Technology and terrorism became available 24 hours a day and the information floodgates were thrust wide open. By the middle of the decade, the dam burst, and an endless flow of  new media content began streaming out into cyberspace.

Then, social networks sprang forth and, suddenly, everyone was sharing everything with everyone else. BLOGS, FLICKR, YOUTUBE, MYSPACE, FACEBOOK, TWITTER and FRIENDFEED turned virtually anyone into a multi-media content creator and offered up the chance to become a new media maven! But, the use of social networks began spiraling out of control as countless millions of social media “addicts” started “tweeting” their every move and every thought and following those of others.

The last few years of the decade unleashed the torrent of content even further, as streaming video sites and smart-phones put all the information and content, even live content, into the palms of our hands everywhere we went. Just over the last year, the numbers of those blogging, tweeting and posting to Facebook “walls” has grown exponentially. The internet has gone “real-time,” and, now, GOOGLE itself is being considered a traditional “mainstream” source of information. 
                                 

Over the last couple of years, we’ve experienced yet another economic “bubble burst” that resulted from a period of unbridled growth and optimism a few years back that may have been just a bit short-sighted. But, the new decade has dawned with more available technology, information and media content than we could ever have dreamed about just a couple decades ago!

The big question now is, “Where do we go from here?” It’s hard to say. With more to consume and communicate than ever, are we now approaching an information overload that could result in a social media meltdown?

Perhaps the Mayans knew something we don’t. Will it all come tumbling down at the end of 2012?

Whatever happens, it’s bound to be interesting. The coming year offers hope and the promise of a return to prosperity once again. There’s never been a more exciting time to STAY TUNED!

THE MAYAN CALENDAR 2012