Community Magazine 
“Wow,” someone said when I told them about Joomla's 21st birthday, “21 years, that’s pretty old. And it’s still alive and kicking, you say?” You bet it is, just like these 21 things we use every day that are (sometimes much) older than Joomla! Age ain't nothing but a number.
#1: The internet
Since: 1960s
You wouldn’t be reading this if it wasn’t for the internet.
#2: Bluetooth
Since: 1999
Ericsson started developing Bluetooth in 1994 as a cheap, energy-efficient and wireless way to connect mobile devices and accessories. Nowadays it’s being used for earplugs, cars, smart watches, keyboards, game controllers, medical devices and all kinds of IoTh-devices.
#3: QR-code
Since: 1994 (yes - no really, yes)
QR means Quick Response.It wasn’t originally designed for consumers at all; it was developed to track car parts in factories. Traditional barcodes could not contain enough information. It took a good 20 years before we all started using them for payments, donations, event tickets, surveys… and some of us still don’t know how to scan a QR code.
#4: GPS
Since: 1970s-90s
Anyone remember when you actually had to look up a location? On a map? Global Positioning System is a satellite navigation system that was originally developed for military purposes. Around 2000, it became available for civilians, and without it we’d be lost. Literally.
#5: ThinkPad
Since: 1992 (fun fact: the famous red TrackPoint nub was there from the very beginning)
Originally from IBM, taken over by Lenovo right before Joomla was born. Still produced and widely used today.
#6: Mozilla Firefox
Since: 2004
Webbrowser, still maintained and improved by Mozilla, with focus on privacy, open standards and a browser engine not based on Chromium. Its predecessor was called Phoenix, later Firebird, before Mozilla chose Firefox as its final name.
#7: LinkedIn
Since: 2003
Professional networking, job hunting, recruitment, company pages and professional communities. Now owned by Microsoft. More than 1 billion members worldwide.
#8: YouTube
First video uploaded: 2005
This needs no explanation: it’s still the #1 video platform!
#9: Coldplay
First rehearsal: 1998
Coldplay’s debut album, Parachutes, came out in 2000 and won a Best Alternative Music Album Grammy. In 2025, Moon Music was their 10th UK #1 album. Coldplay’s Music of the Spheres tour was a huge success, with 12 million tickets sold.
#10: Netflix
Since: 1997
Did you know Netflix started out as a dvd-rental company that sent dvds through mail? In 2007 it evolved to the streaming platform as we know it.
#11: World of Warcraft
Since: 2004
Developed by Blizzard Entertainment. World of Warcraft is a MMORPG, played by thousands of players sharing the same online world. For years, WoW was one of the biggest commercial online games in the world, with millions of active members.
#12: Beyoncé
First solo album: 2003 (Dangerously in Love)
Beyoncé Giselle Knowles-Carter was a member of Destiny’s Child, one of the best selling all-girl groups ever. She went solo in 2003. She is still very popular, with 35 Grammy’s she holds the record of most Grammy Awards ever. In 2025 she won Album of the Year for Cowboy Carter.
#13: Flickr
Since: 2004
Started out as part of an online gaming project and became a platform for photo sharing. It was one of the first big platforms for sharing photos and is still used for exactly that.
#14: Pokémon
Since: 1996
The idea of Pokémon’s creator (Satoshi Tajiri) was to collect and train Pokémon, let them fight, and trade them with other players. The Nintendo Gameboy game was followed by a Trading Card Game, an animation series and a blockbuster movie. The Trading Cards are still very popular.
#15: Wikipedia
Since: 2001
Founded by Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger as a free online encyclopedia, written by volunteers worldwide. The idea of people writing and improving articles was very radical at the time. In the top 10 most visited websites, Wikipedia is the only platform managed by a non-profit. In 2025, around 94 million edits were made by volunteers.
#16: The Sims
Since: 2000
Published by Electronic Arts, developed by Maxis. Life simulation game in which you build houses, create people and decide how they live their lives.Still actively maintained and played.
#17: Taylor Swift
Signed her first record deal in 2004 (at age 14), as a song writer, and her first record deal as a performing artist in 2005.
Now there's a powerhouse! Taylor Swift is a one woman pop music institution. She keeps reinventing herself and it pays off: so far we’re counting 14 Grammy awards (and 58 nominations). She's one of the best-selling pop artists of all time and her popularity remains as strong as ever.
#18: Playstation
Since: 1994
Sony’s first big game console used cd-roms instead of cartridges. That way the games could contain more data. PlayStation played a big part in the growth of 3D-gaming. The brand is still very much alive.
#19: PayPal
Since: 1998
In 2000, thanks to eBay, PayPal had over a million users. Two years later it became the official payment provider for eBay. The idea was very innovative at the time: sending money through internet, without providing bank account information. In 2025, Paypal had over 400 million active accounts.
#20: PDF
Since: 1993
Portable Document Format was developed by Adobe to enable sharing documents that had the same layout regardless of the devices, operating systems or printers that were used. PDF is still considered the standard for sharing and storing documents.
#21: JPEG
Since: 1992
Joint Photographic Experts Group is the international group that developed the JPEG standard (still the standard format for static images). The idea:reduce the size of photos significantly without them immediately looking much worse to the human eye. Fun fact: .jpg and .jpeg are the same. The shorter extension came about historically because older systems had more limited file name extensions.
(#22: WordPress - has been there since 2003; I wouldn't say 'we' love and enjoy it, but some of us do)
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