Outside music itself, what were the major influences and touchstones on '00s music, the way it was marketed, and what was popular?

Making this thread because I think maybe that's the most typical of 00s music, that there were so many outside factors that would obviously influence either a) the music itself b) the way it was consumed and/or marketed or c) what kind of acts and genres became the most popular

So this is sort of the sister thread to the music related thread, the thread were we namecheck and discuss other factors (technology, media phenomenons etc.) that obviously had an important impact on 00s music

Listing a few examples, so you can see more easily where I'm coming from.

mp3 players
Obviously the most important technological new thing of the 00s. I believe it was slighly starting to happen in the late 90s, but didn't become really popular until the 00s. Killing off the newly launched Minidisc just after its birth, and in the long run also seeming to win more and more of the battle with burned CDs. This hasn't only changed the way music is being marketed, but also what people like. The development among the kids towards less albums more single tracks may have already started with all those compilations of the late 80s and 90s, but it really exploded in the 00s when those kids were suddenly able to buy just that one track without buying an entire album.
mp3 technology is also probably the main reason for another typical 00s phenomenon, the increased and actually quite exaggerated use of dynamic range compression that has largely changed the way music sounds to a bigger extent than most other technology has during the past 10 years. This has led to an outrage among hi-fi-enthusiasts, but the kids don't seem to care. They like flat sound better than dynamic sound, because that's what they are used to, and that's what sounds the best through their not exactly hi-hi Nokia speakers.

Guitar Hero
Hard rock, at least other than its most extreme metal forms, was virtually stonedead by the mid-to-late 90s. But during the 00s, the kids got very much into it again. Much of the explanation for this is probably Guitar Hero, which helped a lot of kids discover hard rock bands like Iron Maiden, AC/DC, Guns'n'Roses. These kids would actually tend to prefer those old bands to more recent acts within more accessible hard rock styles, and other than The Darkness and a couple even more short-lasting Eurovision fads, the kids' favourite hard rock records have usually been from the 80s or earlier.

Reality TV
TV has always been an important factor in breaking acts, but never before has TV been as important as in the 00s. Concepts such as Popstars, Pop Idol, (Insert country) Got Talent etc. have been perhaps the single most important way of breaking new acts in many countries, some labels hardly looking for new talent outside reality shows at all. Adding a reality element to the old talent shows has made people seemingly "get to know" the artists better than before, which has made them more popular.
This has in turn also led to more fragmentation between national markets, because an act lauched through a reality show isn't likety to be as popular in countries where people haven't actually followed that show. Using my own country as an example, the percentage of Norwegian acts in the hitlists has never ever been remotely close in the past to what it was during the 00s, and although this has also been due to the 00s being perhaps the best ever decade for Norwegian pop music, it is also partly very much because of Idol and similar shows. Those shows have launched massively popular national acts, while at the same time, it's harder for Britan to export acts like Will Young, Girls Aloud, Gareth Gates, Hearsay or Susan Boyle here. Simply because, we weren't there watching the same TV shows Britan did, and as such, we cannot related to those acts the same way those Brits who did watch the shows can.

Steinberg
Producer of Cubase and later inventors of the softsynth. Home studio technology has helped increase the already evident fragmentation in music, and made it easier for acts to record and market their own music (at least to a smaller specialized audience) without being backed by huge labels.
Now, this was strictly a piece of 90s technology, partly building upon the MIDI technology of the 80s. But the VST may be just as important. Probably one of the main reasons for the electro/80s revival of 00s music was the availability of several classic 70s and 80s synths as cheaper and more user-friendly computer software. Suddenly those old workstations of the 90s because unfashionable, and synths were supposed to be all synths again.

Just a few examples. Should be able to discuss some more about similar phenomenons, and also to which extent the ones I have mentioned are as relevant as I would claim they are.

PUBES

red bull

Pubes have always been a major influence and touchstone on pop music, regardless of decade. :)