Year In Technology Review 2020
In the entertainment category, Mandalorian would have to be one of the best shows to watch in 2020. It just doesn’t disappoint if you are a Star Wars fan. Jon Favreau is a great director and it shows in the entire production. In shock value, Netflix’s Tiger King is probably one documentary series I didn’t expect … to even watch. Yet I watched it and actually finished the whole series. I guess it must be due to not having anything else to do during lockdown, but it was for the most part entertaining indeed.

Another notable show really worth watching was season 3 of Ozark on Netflix. You really have to wrap your head around the twisted plot and unexpected turn of events in this series. Jason Bateman and Laura Linney really make the Byrdes seem like a real family next door, but with a hidden problem. The Witcher is another good show to watch on Netflix, based on the video game of the same name.

It is also worth mentioning the Joe Rogan Experience is now on Spotify. That was perhaps one of the biggest media stories of 2020. Did Joe sell out by leaving Youtube and becoming exclusive on Spotify? It doesn’t seem so, but there have been strange incidents and conflict with Spotify staff regarding JRE content. It is not really meant to spread any sort of hate or misinformation, but more about presenting a different perspective from the norm. Hopefully JRE continues to deliver interesting talks without any influence from the platform or else in 2021 it will be a disappointment.

Disappointments and Failures

Let’s get straight to the most disappointing app of 2020 … Quibi. How they managed to squander $1.75B in funding is beyond explanation, along with the talents that could have made it the next influencer platform. Their short video format was also ideal for on-the-go millennials who consume content from their smartphones or the gadget savvy kids of this generation. Quibi was also under the management of a dream team consisting of Dreamworks co-founder Jeffrey Katzenberg and former Hewlett-Packard CEO Meg Whitman.

The pandemic would have been a good time to use this app, since many people were out of work and just staying home. Using Quibi could have filled that void, but instead it turned out to be a short lived project. Perhaps it was because users were not too interested in the content and therefore not willing to pay as subscribers or poor exposure from marketing that should have done more to promote the app. For whatever reason, this has to be the epic tech/media fail story of 2020.
['Vincent Tabora']
['Gadgets', 'Cameras', 'Entertainment', 'Technology', 'Photography']