As January 1st draws ever closer, we have reached that point where we sit back by the open fire, sipping on a brandy, reflecting on what we have achieved over the past 12 months. Of course, if you’re anything like me then you might struggle to remember what you got up to earlier in the year. Well, fear not – social media is here to save the day once again.
A year in review
Everybody’s favourite microblogging site, Twitter, have created a microsite called 2012 – Year on Twitter. This is the third annual review site they have produced, and it looks at how the twitterverse reacted the biggest events of the year.
Pages on Year on Twitter include Golden Tweets – the most retweeted posts of the year; Pulse of the Planet which looks at the biggest topics of conversation; Only on Twitter – a brief look at some of the more unique moments and tweets to appear; Trends, the breakdown of the UK’s trending topics; and New Voices which introduces just some of the high-profile figures to join Twitter in 2012.
The best feature of Year on Twitter however is Your Year on Twitter. By teaming up with graphical bio site Vizify, Twitter has brought out an interactive tool that shows you what you have been up to on the social media site. As well as displaying your own Golden Tweet and Golden Follower (who has mentioned you the most); it lists your top subjects and hashtags, even telling you when throughout the year you were using those tags.
Facebook’s year in review
Facebook’s annual review, whilst not as comprehensive as Twitter’s offering, provides some interesting statistics nonetheless. Facebook Stories, whilst primarily focussed on US trends, does have a section revealing the most popular songs, check-ins and topics in the UK. You might be surprised at some of the results.
To Facebook’s credit however, their personal year in review tool is incredibly comprehensive and a lot of fun to do, especially if you practically live on Facebook like I do. Taking full advantage of Facebook’s timeline layout launched last December, 2012 Year in Review goes through the last 12 months of data to pull out and display your check-ins; new friends and pages; top statuses and pictures and of course key events and highlights (if you have added any of those). Of course, once you’ve had a look at it yourself, there is the option to share it on your timeline for all your friends to see. To access your personalised review, simply go onto your profile – the option to see your Year in Review will be sat at the top of your timeline.
Finally, no annual review would be complete without Google’s Zeitgeist video, a visualisation of how people searched on everybody’s favourite search engine (No, not Bing). Now in its third year, this inspiring video has generated over 4.5 million views in just a week, and is a fitting way to round up what has been a phenomenal year.
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