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:

1. Japan earthquake and tsunami
2. Royal Wedding
3. Libyan conflict
4. May 21^st/Oct. 21^st Rapture
5. Death of  bin Laden
6. Egyptian protests
7. Venezuelan protests
8. Brazilian politics
9. Gabrielle Giffords shooting
10. 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:

• LinkedIn
• 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:

1. The death of Steve Jobs
2. Social media’s role as a tool for protesters
3. Hackers
4. Tablet market gets dozens of new entrants
5. Facebook and partners add ‘frictionless’ sharing
6. Patent wars
7. Google+
8. Apple becomes the most valuable company in the world
9. IBM’s Watson beats human champs on ‘Jeopardy!’
10. 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:

1. Touch computing
2. Social gestures
3. NFC and mobile payments
4. Beyond the iPad
5. TV Everywhere
6. Voice control
7. Spatial gestures
8. Second-screen experiences
9. Flexible screens
10. HTML5

In 5 years – from IBM (Covered by techworldnews):

1. Personal energy
2. The end of the password
3. Mind reading
4. The end of the digital divide
5. 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)

750 Million & Counting

Sources say that Facebook now has 750 million global users. And let’s not forget that to be included in that metric users actually had to log in to Facebook within the last 30 days. No official announcement has been made as Facebook is likely waiting until they hit the 1 billion mark to release an official statement.

Social Ad Updates

Twitter:

Twitter has confirmed that promoted tweets will soon appear in the timeline and in HootSuite. This has been Twitter’s plan since they launched Promoted Tweets and the change will likely occur sometime over the next two months. Learn more.

LinkedIn:

LinkedIn has started incorporating user networks into ads. As LinkedIn puts it, “Imagine if we can make the advertising that you see on LinkedIn as relevant, timely, and useful by surfacing the wisdom of your network at the appropriate times.” For example, when LinkedIn serves up job postings, you will now see relevant users in your network that you could use as a direct reference. Company followers will also now be included in product/service advertisements. See two examples images below:

Facebook:

Facebook is testing a new type of sponsored story ad called “Comment Ads.” Comment advertisements will allow a brand to ask a promoted question or discuss a topic that any user can comment on.

“Play Music Together.”

Ever want to be a DJ? (Haven’t we all?) I have been testing out Turntable in Beta, a group music streaming service, and I must say it is pretty addicting. You start by selecting an avatar and then you either create or join a room (popular rooms include “Coding Soundtrack” and “Indie While You Work”.) You can play with friends and/or strangers, and while only 5 DJ’s play at a time there can be around 200 listeners per room. You select songs from a wide array of streamed music or upload your own song. But be careful, if the crowd doesn’t like your tune, they can vote it ‘Lame’ and your song will be skipped. On the contrary, if you have excellent DJ skills listeners will vote the song ‘Awesome’ and you will earn points. Points go towards making your avatar bigger and better (think Minnie Mouse to Deadmau5).  While Turntable is still working out a few kinks, it is a pretty awesome virtual dance party that is part Pandora, part social networking. Read more.

-Anna (@alucas9)

Here are my picks of the week:

Foursquare Hits a Million:

This week, Foursquare has hit the 1 million mark. Yep, there is now over 1 million Foursquare users. On Thursday, Foursquare tweeted about their anticipation of this milestone, saying, “We’re closing in on 1 million users! Current count is 969,775. Looks like that’s we may have something to toast during Friday Happy Hour :).”

Social Plugins:

Facebook announced five social plugins at f8 that can be embedded into websites -which you will then be able to interact with. Here’s what I took away from the article What the Facebook F8 Annoucements Mean for You:

• Friends Activity Plugin: Lets you see what real time news feed results of your Facebook friends activity pertaining to the site you’re on.  (see CNN.com)
• Like Plugin: Without having to login, this plugin lets you see which of your friends like the site or have engaged with it recently
• Recommendations Plugin: Provides recommendations for site content that Facebook users liked most
• Log-In Plugin: Offers functionality on website based on people who are already logged in to Facebook. Basically an updated version of Facebook connect, which now contains photos of friends who have already joined the website.
• Social Bar Plugin: Lets you to chat with Facebook friends and show likes on Facebook all from the website you’re on.

Open Graph:

Another announcement at f8 was Open Graph. Open Graph essentially shares things you “like” with other websites (unless you opt out).  As Giganom states, “If you indicate you like an article, a band, a restaurant — anything, really — a site using Facebook’s open graph protocol can create a persistent relationship with you around that content.” Microsoft Docs, Pandora, and Yelp are initial partners for Open Graph, so these sites will have the ability to personalize your experience using your public Facebook information.

Other Facebook News:

Other changes to Facebook this week include that fans have official been changed to like on pages. Also, Facebook is now prompting users to link their hobbies to pages around the web by automatically pulling in choices they think are correct. Facebook also introduced Graph API at f8, which in a nutshell, just makes it easier for developers to utilize the facebook platform.

The Lost iPhone:

A big news topic this week was that an iPhone 4G was accidentally left at a bar, resulting in someone else taking it home & discovering it was the next iPhone. Although Apple security shut off the phone, Gizmodo got the shell for $5,000. Here’s the photos of the iPhone 4G: http://bit.ly/cSJgYb

-Anna (@alucas9)