Five Jobs That Didn’t Exist Ten Years Ago

The world of technology has changed the way that we think about the work we do. Complete cities have been uprooted by technological changes that have force out entire industries. Detroit, once a huge center of industry, has taken a turn for the worse in recent years thanks to robotics. Where once it took a team of people to build a car, it now only takes a few individuals to regulate the automated builders. The automotive industry has been forever transformed.

In the 1990s, there were many individuals who truly thought that the internet was a fad. It wasn’t long before those people realized that the internet was here to stay. We all know now that the internet is a huge part of our world economy, and keeps us connected globally on a daily basis. Sales on the internet in 2012 accounted for $225 billion of the global economy. Anyone who said that the internet was going to be just a passing trend long ago ate their words.

There are many new jobs that have been created thanks to new technologies that didn’t even exist 10 years ago. Technology has really changed the game when it comes to skills that need to be learned in order to thrive in the modern economy. With new jobs being created in this digital age, it is important to be on top of your game when it comes to what you are learning. Traditional education, in some cases, is not going to cut it anymore. Here are just a few jobs that have appeared as a result of new technology.

The world of social media has really blown up in the last 10 years. Back in the early 2000s, there were very few sites that you could go onto to create your own user profile. It was up to software applications like AOL Messenger and MSN Messenger to get this job done. Though some companies tried to get social networks going, it wasn’t until the advent of MySpace that social media really became a driving force for businesses.

Since the days of MySpace, we’ve seen the release of plenty of new social media networks that can help companies grow, though there are obviously a few big sites that you need to focus on when you are building a following. The sites that you want to focus on are usually YouTube, Facebook, Google+, Twitter, and Instagram. It can be very difficult for a business to update all of these different pages every day with their busy schedule, and that’s where a social media expert can come in. These individuals are pros when it comes to making effective videos, posts, and photos with viral potential. For now, it is a great idea for a company to have a social media expert on their team. If you find that you are great at getting a ton of followers on social media sites, you may be able to use that skill to build a lucrative career for by helping businesses reach more customers on social networking sites.

The process behind building websites has changed in the last 10 years, in some cases much for the better. Where the past saw everyone focused on HTML development for their sites through programs like Dreamweaver, other methods of website development have now taken over. Content management systems are the ideal way for an organization to run their website, with the most popular type of content management system being WordPress.

WordPress is a customizable tool that allows for content to be managed through SQL data sheets. It comes with a simple and stylish back-end dashboard that makes it easy to update a site’s content. CSS and PHP are the two languages that need to be learned in order to create the actual functionality of the site, and companies are very willing to hire those who are experts in this content management system to run their website. Knowing everything about WordPress can be a very marketable skill in this technological age.

Everyone knows about the search engine giant Google. It’s easily the most popular search engine on the internet, used so often that it has become a verb. Needless to say, it is very important for a local business, large company, or online magazine to be able to reach the front page of Google. This is a great way for these companies to gain much more traffic over the lifespan of their company, and grow the overall size of their business – especially if they are an online-centric venture.

Companies are willing to pay top dollar to skilled individuals who are able to help them get on the front page of Google. There are many job openings now in companies that are directed towards those who have great SEO skills. SEO, or search engine optimization, covers all of the areas help one’s site get closer to being on the front page of Google. When someone is looking into being an SEO specialist, they need to make sure that they have great writing skills. Keywords and top content are what Google really wants to see on a website.

Apple introduced the iPhone to the world in 2007, but it wasn’t until 2008 that Apple opened its app store, making the development of third party software open to the world. Since the app store launched, a whole new industry has emerged, leading to mobile programming becoming a hugely lucrative career path for programmers to pursue. Some apps have exploded in popularity, netting themselves hundreds of millions of downloads since their creation – apps like Angry Birds, Cut The Rope, Words With Friends being notable examples. There are over 800,000 apps available in the app store, and more are released every day.

There are companies out there that focus solely on creating apps, with iOS, Android, Blackberry, Windows, and other mobile platforms all offering support for programmers to sell their product through dedicated app stores. These companies are constantly on the lookout for talented software developers who are willing to help them create hit apps. These jobs usually pay well, and at times they offer revenue sharing programs for the developers that helped to create the product. This means that a developer who helps create a hit app could wind up a millionaire. It’s getting harder and harder to create a hit in the expanding sea of mobile apps, but it is a great skill to have in a transitioning programming industry.

YouTube first started as a project run by a few grad students who wanted to simplify the process of showing videos during their presentations. Not long after the creation of YouTube, internet industry leader Google bought the platform, and brought its might to bear in building Youtube into the presence it is today. Since its inception, Youtube has transformed itself into an online hub for entertainment, with record labels, television networks, and movie production companies latching on to YouTube as a marketing tool and additional source of revenue.

Along the way, YouTube spawned a whole new type of online celebrity. In 2011, YouTube started offering partnerships to YouTube users who were attracting a massive number of views to their videos. These videos were combined with ad placements, and the partnership made YouTube not only a source of income for Google, for Youtube personalities as well. Since then, establishing a popular Youtube channel has become a very profitable business for those with the knowhow to make it happen. Being a YouTube celebrity takes consistency and skills, and you need to have subject matter on your channel that people actually want to view. If you want to become a YouTube celebrity, make sure your videos are consistent and fun to watch.

Good on Ya.

I haven’t had a drink since sometime very early in the last decade. Can’t remember the exact date except that it was the day after my best friend’s funeral.

There’s some kind of connection between the two, but not one that is immediately obvious.

OMG! You tease.

I have two different versions of that.

Sohhhhh good!

But, yuh gotta be careful. The proof on them will sneak up on you real quick like.

Good thing I had some training in my youth with moonshine .

Tempted but, I want to lose this weight more than I want to get lit.

Try drinking all the bourbon you want but not eating, you will be amazed how quickly you get to be as skinny as String Bean. Calories from whiskey do not turn to fat, they merely furnish energy so that what you eat turns to fat. Some of the skinniest people I have ever known drank heavily and daily, they just didn’t like to eat very much. Of course if you enjoy eating high calorie meals and drink also you will blow up like a balloon.

“Someone figured out how to monetize the ability to apply comon sense to accomplishing a task.”

True, but it’s all about supply and demand, and common sense is in increasingly short supply, and they are trying (fruitlessly, IMO) to artificially increase the “supply”.

Still, I LMAO on these “certifications” for things once considered as part of ANY reasonably intelligent persons’ toolkit. We actually had a CLASS given where I work for “critical thinking skills”. I pointed out to my friends how I thought that to be amazing - the distillation of a lifetime of constantly evolving and refining problem-solving methodologies distilled into a three-hour class (with a very nice printed certificate)!

WHY did I waste all of those years...!

Well, “life” probably taught you in more detail, more convincingly and memorably, and didn’t charge you $495 (you probably paid more than that for your lessons but it wasn’t an explicit price tag).

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