It’s been quite a landmark year for connectivity, social media and technology. Here are my recommendations for the best of “the best of’s” for 2011:
Twitter Topics:
Numerous current events were discussed on Twitter this year, some of which even broke on there first (such as the Osama bin Laden announcement). Here are the news items that topped the Twitter trending list:
- Japan earthquake and tsunami
- Royal Wedding
- Libyan conflict
- May 21st/Oct. 21st Rapture
- Death of bin Laden
- Egyptian protests
- Venezuelan protests
- Brazilian politics
- Gabrielle Giffords shooting
- England riots
See Twitter’s year in review here.
IPO Mania:
This was the year of IPO buzz. Social media companies that went public in 2011:
- Zynga
- Pandora
- Groupon
Speculations circulate that the IPO trend will continue in 2012 with the likes of Facebook and Twitter.
Top Tech Stories:
CNN selected their top picks for tech stories in 2011. Here are their 10:
- The death of Steve Jobs
- Social media’s role as a tool for protesters
- Hackers
- Tablet market gets dozens of new entrants
- Facebook and partners add ‘frictionless’ sharing
- Patent wars
- Google+
- Apple becomes the most valuable company in the world
- IBM’s Watson beats human champs on ‘Jeopardy!’
- Spotify and Facebook take on digital music
Click here to read the full article.
The 2011 Social Media Timeline:
Social Media Today put together a timeline that makes it easy to recap social media accomplishments throughout the year:
What’s next?
Tech Guru’s share their opinions on what they think the online future holds:
Next year – from CNN:
- Touch computing
- Social gestures
- NFC and mobile payments
- Beyond the iPad
- TV Everywhere
- Voice control
- Spatial gestures
- Second-screen experiences
- Flexible screens
- HTML5
In 5 years – from IBM (Covered by techworldnews):
- Personal energy
- The end of the password
- Mind reading
- The end of the digital divide
- The end of junk mail
2011 has been an innovative year and 2012 looks as if it won’t disappoint. Happy New Year!
-Anna (@alucas9)
13
Could Pinterest Knock Facebook Off Its Perch?
by FeedbackLately, Pinterest seems to put the “P” in popular. The social network is on fire, and if you’ve seen the latest stats on the virtual pinboard you should know why. Natalie Brandweiner of MyCustomer.com shared that “According to Compete, the number of Pinterest’s unique visitors increased by 429% from September to December 2011 to reach 7.21m users and research by Shareaholic indicated the site has overtaken Google+, YouTube and LinkedIn for site referrals, generating 3.6% of referred traffic from January.”
Even as recently as this weekend Techcrunch reported that Pinterest has over 10.4 million registered users, 9 million monthly Facebook-connected users, and 2 million daily Facebook users. (It is important to keep in mind that some of these stats are still speculation or determined through number of Likes on Facebook so are not true active user stats, yet.)
Okay, so we know that Pinterest is popular. But the question is, just how groundbreaking will it be? Dean Browell, PhD and EVP at Feedback, tackles that question in the UK’s MyCustomer.com:
So there you have it. It doesn’t look like the interest with Pinterest is going to wane anytime soon. My interest, however, is now more focused on how its success is going to influence the leading social networks.
-Anna (@alucas9)