The end of the year is a time of reflection and hope for many people. It’s a time to look back on the previous year as a whole and zoom in and out on things. This often leads to making predictions and resolutions for the year about to start.
This past year was especially important for the evolution of social media and other technologies. Many websites have taken close looks at types of events from 2011, such as social media mistakes or how people have used social media and technology, while others are making predictions for industry trends in 2012.
We, however, are making a super guide to all of these articles so you can easily find the best, worst, and most entertaining events of 2011 and get excited for 2012! If you agree with predictions or want to share your own, please leave us a comment!
Social Media
In 2011…
- 19 Biggest Social Media Moments of 2011 – From internet memes to world news breaking on Twitter to popular videos, Mashable has chosen 19 moments that have “contributed to a better informed and more entertained global community.”
- 21 Most Memorable Tweets of 2011 – Another Mashable article, this looks at tweets we will remember long after New Years. BONUS – the article also has links to other wrap-ups of Twitter in 2011.
- 9 Social Media Uprisings that Sought to Change the World in 2011 – A last Mashable article shows a new generation of activism defined by social media.
- Marketing’s Biggest Social Media Blunders of 2011 – From Weingergate to Qwikster, these social media mistakes Ad Age collected from 2011 will still be entertaining for a while.
- The Top Ten Social Media Lessons from 2011 – Forbe’s two-part article summarizes what we learned about and from social media this year. (The link above is to the first part of the article, the second part is here.
In 2012…
- Social Media Predictions for 2012 – Likeable Media’s predictions about social media in 2012.
- Top 5 Social Media Trends for 2012 – B2C takes a look at social media trends for the upcoming year.
Technology
In 2011…
- 2011: Tech’s Biggest Winners and Losers – Lance Ulanoff from Mashable looks at the tech events, big and small, that “gave 2011 its character.”
- The 15 Biggest Tech Flops of 2011 – From Qwikster to the Gmail iPhone app, Business Insider looks at what just didn’t work, with the common theme of businesses trying to compete with the iPad.
- The Biggest Web Outages of 2011 – Mashable looks at SmartBear Software’s list of the top web outages in 2011, not including outages caused by a third party.
- iTunes Rewind – An article from MacRumors looks at Apple’s iTunes Rewind 2011 feature in the iTunes store, highlighting the best of music, movies, TV shows, books, apps and podcasts in 2011.
In 2012…
- Top 10 Tech Trends for 2012 – This article on CNN.com by Mashable founder Pete Cashmore predicts what may be coming soon in the next stages of this digital era
- Top 10 SMB Technology Predictions for 2012 – From mobile application use to cloud computing, the SMB group made predictions about technology trends for small businesses.
Search
Since two-thirds of the search articles combine 2011 and 2012 into one post, we will combine them into one section of our post!
- Zeitgeist 2011: How the world searched – This website by Google looks at how the world searched with Google in 2011, including Top 10 lists for different parts of the world and a ‘year in review’ video.
- Biggest Search Events of 2011 & Predictions for 2012 – Search Engine Watch combines a recap and predictions into one article focused on search events.
- Favorite 2011 PPC Changes & Predictions for 2012 – This video from PPC Hero looks at the past year and immediate future in the PPC world.
