The 2000s (pronounced "two-thousands"; shortened to the 00s and known as the aughts or noughties) was a decade that began on January 1, 2000, and ended on December 31, 2009. The early part of the decade saw the long predicted breakthrough of economic giants in Asia, like India and China, which had double-digit growth during nearly the whole decade. It is also benefited from an economic boom, which saw the two most populous countries becoming an increasingly dominant economic force. The rapid catching-up of emerging economies with developed countries sparked some protectionist tensions during the period and was partly responsible for an increase in energy and food prices at the end of the decade. The economic developments in the latter third of the decade were dominated by a worldwide economic downturn, which started with the crisis in housing and credit in the United States in late 2007 and led to the bankruptcy of major banks and other financial institutions. The outbreak of this global financial crisis sparked a global recession, beginning in the United States and affecting most of the industrialized world. The decade saw the rise of internet, which grew from covering 6.7% to 25.7% of the world population. This contributed to globalization during the decade, which allowed faster communication among people around the world; social networking sites arose as a new way for people to stay in touch from distant locations, as long as they had an internet connection. Myspace was the most popular social networking website until June 2009, when Facebook overtook it in number of American users. E-mail continued to be popular throughout the decade and began to replace "snail mail" as the primary way of sending letters and other messages to people in distant locations, though it had existed since 1971. Google, YouTube, Ask.com and Wikipedia emerged to become among the top 10 most popular websites. Amazon overtook eBay as the most-visited e-commerce site in 2008. AOL significantly declined in popularity throughout the decade, falling from being the most popular website to no longer being within the top 10. Excite and Lycos fell outside the top 10, and MSN fell from the second to sixth most popular site, though it quadrupled its monthly visits. Yahoo maintained relatively stable popularity, remaining the most popular website for most of the decade. The war on terror and War in Afghanistan began after the September 11 attacks in 2001.