Looking back, 2022 will be remembered as a particularly turbulent year for Turkey. technology industry. Dense Give and take between Twitter and Elon MuskIt ended with the businessman being at the helm. social network, pointing to the collapse of cryptocurrencies, a trend change that has shaken the market deeply this year. Still, the development of new innovations such as Artificial Intelligence (AI) opens the door to new jobs.

We summarize what’s happening this year and where an industry that is becoming increasingly important and having a greater impact on our lives is heading in seven keys.

The slowdown of big tech

After two decades of unprecedented sustained growth, the tech industry suffered a major setback in 2022. The industry has not only managed to recover from the effects of the pandemic in the last two years, but has also managed to take advantage of the world’s forced progress. digitization continue to grow to never-before-seen levels. However, a hangover comes after the party. Bad economic prospects and the decline in advertising investments, especially from the second quarter of the year, hit big technology companies. The slowdown in his business resulted in serious declines in value. Snap’s capitalization fell 81%; Aim (owner Facebook, instagram Y What’s up?) 64%; Amazon %49; Alphabet (owner Google Y YouTube); Microsoft 30% and view 26%

This setback in their accounts led to a wave of layoffs. More than 1,000 tech companies worldwide have laid off 152,730 so far this year. Meta laid off 11,000 jobs and twitter liquidated more than 60% of its workforce. Companies that overestimate their expectations point to a change of course in which investments in personnel and new projects are drastically reduced to focus on efficiency.

Elon Musk opened Twitter

purchase twitter Written by Elon Musk, this news was undoubtedly one of the news of the year. And it was because of all the drama it brought with it. In April, the platform’s board of directors and tech boss reached a sales deal for $44,000 million (around 41,000 million euros), a price well above its true value. Despite this, he did not hesitate to criticize in front of the public. social networkreached its valuation in the stock market. In July, the controversial businessman announced that he was backing down in breach of the agreement that led Twitter to blame him. The trial was supposed to begin in October, but the high chances of defeat led him to stick to the deal.

With Musk at the helm, Twitter has become a chaotic and crazy space. In the first weeks, he fired the company’s key executives and liquidated almost 60% of its workforce, citing complaints that it did not respect the rights of relevant employees. Those who remained were forced to adhere to an – in his own words – “extreme” work policy, with long working hours that forced workers to give up their privacy and even sleep in offices.

Making money has always been a weak spot for Twitter. Musk wanted to change that by launching the plan twice. subscription Among other things, Twitter Blue, which offers payers the blue verification pin. He had to cancel the first time because there was a wave of identity theft at many companies that caused them to experience a branding crisis. On 12 December, this plan was reactivated with improvements, despite much criticism.

The purge of entire teams dedicated to moderating content has led to an increase in hate speech. It also has something to do with Musk unlocking radicals’ accounts. extreme right (among them that of former President Donald Trump) or disinformation Lacking a clear strategy about covid, Musk has chosen to run Twitter recklessly and chaotically, blocking the accounts of critical journalists, users watching his private jet’s flights, or banning the sharing of links on competing social networks. All this brought him criticism even from his allies.

A terrible year for cryptocurrencies

If 2021 was the year of the ‘boom’ cryptocurrencies2022 has been the year of collapse. In November 2021, bitcoin value exceeded $56,000. Today only 15,000. It has dropped almost 63% in the last 12 months. And this is the most prestigious, reliable and reputable virtual currency. What happened?

The promising crypto market has turned into a winter this year. In May, the Luna coin began to sink from being one of the ten most valuable coins in the world. It became worthless overnight, embarrassing thousands of investors and dragging out other projects. The falling market swept away the major lenders. Celsius Network, hedge funds like Three Arrows Capital, and especially FTX, one of the world’s largest ‘trading’ platforms. Founder young Sam Bankman-FriedAt just 30 years old, she went from being a millionaire to entering the world of fashion. bankruptcyFrom being respected on the front pages as an ideologue of a new world to being arrested and charged with one of the greatest fraud your recent history.

‘Cryptobros’ promised that 2022 would be the year in which they would continue to accumulate wealth, but instead, they have devastated millions of investors around the world denouncing the ‘corruption’ pursued by the giants of a stunned industry. In one year, the cryptocurrency market lost more than $2 trillion. 2024 prospects are no better.

The Emergence of Artificial Intelligence

In the technological world, 2022 will be commemorated with its so-called emergence. Artificial intelligence productive, that is, systems that can create any image or text according to the wishes of their users. Although they are not new, more and more advanced models have been introduced in recent months, such as: DALL-E, ChatGPT anyone stable diffusion It fascinated users who popularized artificial intelligence as a game beyond the technological niche. The creative capacity of these programs is fascinating and opens the door to transforming art, but it also carries some risks regarding both the reality and the impact it can have on the artists who make a living from their creations.

TikTok leads the way

While big tech companies are affected by the macroeconomic turmoil, TikTok went another way. Video platform of the Chinese company byte dance It remains the most downloaded app on the planet and is growing in popularity, even being used more and more as an information search engine. Thus, it plans to reach 1.8 billion users by the end of 2022, which means record growth. It also aims to increase its utility to $10,000 million, far from the $3,880 million it received last year.

TikTok’s influence is huge. Major platforms saw their rise and popularity, especially among the youngest, as a threat. And some research shows that by 2027, TikTok will earn more from ads than Facebook, Instagram and YouTube combined. Therefore, these three platforms have chosen to copy short video models. Like this commitment to entertainment and the advent of other ‘apps’ Be realistic marks a change in the trend of social networks.

But not all joy is for TikTok. And the thing is, parallel to its rise, some countries such as the United States are also growing concerns about its influence. Washington has already taken action to ban the use of the “app” among government officials. This tension may increase next year.

The wave of regulation grows

The first decade of the 2000s was the birth and golden age of big tech companies. After seeing the political, economic and social impact of its growth and uncontrolled practices, the second decade, arrangement. The year 2022 once again showed the authorities’ tendency to put an end to the excesses of the industry giants.

This EU It has approved two pioneering measures in this regard: the Digital Services Act (DSA) and the Digital Services Act (DMA), which will challenge hateful content and disinformation, limit the use of citizen data and be more transparent. tries to prevent anti-competitive practices and abuse of power.

In the US, both sides support stronger regulation to combat monopolistic practices. privacy and stop cyber attacksHowever, they are divided on how to limit the power of ‘Big Tech’. While the rise of pressure and accusations against these big companies has not stopped, Washington has taken little action to regulate them.

And the metaverse?

At the end of October 2021, Facebook announced that his name had been changed. Aim. In the midst of a scandal over its impact on the health of minors, the social network has started betting (almost) everything on the so-called construction. virtual universe, an immersive internet in 3D. This spin triggered the popularization of a term hitherto reserved for science fiction. Over the past year, companies and public administrations of all kinds have used it to try to sell products that still fall short of what they promise.

Despite high expectations, the results are inconclusive. It’s estimated that Meta has lost around $10 billion in the metaverse division this year, this idea could take five, 10 or 15 years to materialize. Last week, a distinguished name in the field left the company, saying the company was running “half as efficiently”.

Despite this, the company will continue to leverage its huge advantages to fund this personal bet. Mark Zuckerberg. And not alone. Microsoft, Google, SAMSUNG and even view It will compete to try to take control of the emerging market for Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality devices.