2020 has been a hugely difficult year for businesses across the world. With the High Street taking an enormous blow, supply chains being disrupted and many losing their jobs, it’s testament to the resilience of these organisations, large and small, that the impact wasn’t more profound.
Amidst these extremely testing circumstances, many tech brands have emerged from the lockdown period in good shape, or even thriving. With many of our ties cut off to the outside world, family and friends, we’ve had to lean on technology for entertainment, communication, education and so much more.
Here are four technology brands that added a little happiness to an otherwise pretty grim year (and did rather well for themselves in the process).
Where else to start? The company that last year was a mere challenger to more established services like Skype and WebEx is now a true household name. As office-based businesses around the world turned to remote working almost overnight, Zoom’s simple, reliable platform and easy integration of large groups saw it emerge the undisputed champion. The figures are staggering, with daily meeting participants peaking at 300 million in April, up from 10 million in December 2019.
However, what was previously known as a handy enterprise software tool soon became a touchstone in popular culture. Zoom chats with family. Zoom drinks. Zoom quizzes (sorry).
It’s a platform some of us are still getting used to. Seeing Zoom founder and CEO Eric Yuan fumbling for the mute button on the company’s earning calls earlier this year was an all-too-relatable reminder of many of us before we’ve had our first cup of coffee.
Zoom clearly has a crucial role to play as the way we work shifts even post-lockdown. It will be interesting to see how the company adapts in 2021 as it juggles unprecedented demands from both consumers and businesses.
Like Zoom, Twitch was hardly small fry prior to lockdown, having been acquired by Amazon for £718 million in 2014. However, 2020 was the year when not just gaming, but gaming vicariously, became a saving grace for many.
Twitch is now firmly established as the world’s largest platform of its kind for gamers, and live-streaming spiked 45% between the months of March and April as we settled into our lockdown routine. Whether Fortnite, League of Legends or FIFA is your thing, Twitch (other platforms are available) has you covered.
Entire communities, fandoms and quasi-languages have sprung up around the biggest streamers, and the sense of belonging found in these spaces has been, it’s no exaggeration to say, a lifesaver for a lot of people.
However, Twitch has also proven to be an outlet for creative types and amazing ideas outside of gaming, from live comedy and DJ sets to mukbangs have sprung up on the platform for users to enjoy and draw inspiration from (warning: the latter may make you extremely hungry).
If you’d told us this time last year we would be spending our evenings swotting up on Brahms and the Romantic era, we’d probably have called you a liar. However, the lovely folks at Primephonic have recently launched Ludwig, an online crash course in classical music, giving beginners a dummy’s guide to the genre, via entertaining podcasts and informative email lessons.
We’re not alone either; millions of us (young and old) enjoy classical music but simply don’t know where to start. With Ludwig your classical journey can begin while enjoying other lockdown pursuits like sourdough baking or failing at DIY as it is all listening based and available in bite sized chunks so even those of us with the shortest of attention spans can enjoy it.
There are a few language enthusiasts amongst us here, so Duolingo just has to get a mention. In a sea of competing language learning platforms, its simple teaching plans and freemium model have made it the go-to choice of budding polyglots across the world.
Perhaps it’s the desire to learn new skills, or more likely, it’s a yearning for exotic destinations we haven’t been able to explore this year. Whatever it is, this platform has soared in popularity during 2020. And when the time finally comes, hopefully many of us will be able to stretch beyond “dos cervezas por favor” on our next vacation.
