It’s official—LittleMonkey is an adult! After 18 years of business, we’ve reached the legal age to vote, drink, get married, and sign contracts (though we were already doing that last one).

It's wild to think how much the world—and technology—has changed since February 2007. Back then, we were just a tiny monkey learning to walk, and the tech landscape looked very different.

2007: Primitive Tech

In 2007, smartphones were a pipe dream. The iPhone and Android hadn’t arrived yet, and BlackBerry ruled the world. But we were already getting into mobile apps, before they were cool. I was writing J2ME apps for Nokia phones—unfortunately, the market wasn’t there yet. It was more of a hobby until the App Store came along and suddenly, apps mattered. Who knew?

The glory of CD-ROMs was alive and well in 2007. And yes, we still have a stack of LittleMonkey-branded CD-ROMs we once used as promotional material. Just in case we time travel and need to impress someone in 2005, or if we get hit with a nostalgia wave.

AI in 2007? It was mostly Clippy in Microsoft Word. The idea of something like ChatGPT was the stuff of sci-fi. Fast forward to today, and AI is everywhere—helping us write emails, optimize code, and even pick out our outfits (maybe).

Virtual reality? The closest thing to consumer VR was putting a toilet paper roll up to your eyes and pretending. Oculus Rift wouldn’t hit the scene for another six years, and the idea of the metaverse wasn’t even a twinkle in Mark Zuckerberg’s eye. While the metaverse fizzled out, we’ve enjoyed building promotional apps for Oculus Quest and even Google Cardboard—proving VR can be low-fi and still fun.

In 2007, social media was a baby. Facebook had just opened up to the public, Twitter was barely a year old, and platforms like Instagram, TikTok, and Snapchat hadn’t even been invented yet. MySpace was still the place to be, and your top 8 friends actually mattered. We’ve made Facebook games for companies of all sizes—even a political party (but that’s a story for another time). And we’ve taken the embedded Facebook feed widget off websites as they’ve evolved throughout the years!

Bitcoin? Nope. Crypto bros didn’t exist. If you’d told us back then that people would pay millions for JPEGs of apes, we’d have assumed you were talking about a zoo. As for NFTs, I disliked them so much I actually designed an alternative—without the crazy gas fees and celebrity hype. Then I realized I was just creating a platform for bad artwork, so I abandoned the idea.

Software Development in 2007 was a whole different ballgame. Mobile apps weren’t even a thing, and the modern frameworks we now use didn’t exist. If you were building a website, you were probably battling with jQuery, PHP, and the horrors of Internet Explorer 6. That browser was a nightmare, and debugging it felt like a personal attack. But on the bright side, I was a jQuery master and didn’t need Copilot to get by!

The Next 18 Years: What’s Coming?

So, what’s next for the next 18 years?

Well by 2043 (yikes!) AI will be everywhere—your AI assistant will handle your schedule, make excuses for you, and maybe even help you out of that holographic 3D Zoom meeting you’re desperately trying to avoid.

Web3? It’s anyone’s guess whether blockchain will revolutionize everything, or if we’ll still be making jokes about it in 2043. The future of decentralization is still a bit of a mystery, but it's clear that it's going to play a major role in some capacity. Just how it’ll all pan out remains to be seen. Maybe we'll rely more on decentralized versions of the apps we use every day—imagine Facebook without the data collection, or Twitter without the bots (or unhinged CEO)! One thing’s for sure: we’ll all still be trying to figure out what the metaverse is.

Brain-computer interfaces? Will we still be typing on keyboards, or will we just think our code into existence? Maybe we’ll have neural interfaces that let us wirelessly “code” and collaborate directly with each other’s minds. Pair programming will mean literally sharing a brainwave, and we could be debugging code simply by thinking through a problem. Will our workspaces become entirely digital, with AI and remote collaboration tools supporting us as we “think” our way through tasks? And just think—no more RSI from typing or clicking.

Flying Cars? Finally? – It’s been 18 years, and we still don’t have them. Do better, future.

On the bright side, tech will be greener. Our devices will run on clean energy, last longer, and be made from recycled materials. Maybe we’ll even have phones powered by the energy we generate just walking around. In a perfect world, everything from the hardware to the software will be built with environmental responsibility in mind. It’s a dream, but hey, we’re in it for the long haul.

One thing is certain—LittleMonkey will still be here. We’ll keep solving problems, making things better, and evolving with the times. It’s been an incredible 18 years, and we can’t wait to see where the next 18 take us.