A Round Up of 2012... And some seminal trending photos...
Oh
what a year it’s been ladies and gentlemen, and of course in the world of web
one week adds up to a lifetime, so what were the seminal moments of 2012. Just
for a bit of nostalgia, here are Cybergirl’s top five moments (with a few
seminal ‘trending’ FB images thrown in for posterity):
1.
Tax
avoidance – yes 2012 was the year that Goliath companies such as Google,
Starbucks and Amazon finally got called to account over their corporate (read
tax avoidant behavior) – what was the result, tentative boycotting of Starbucks
and their resolution to pay 20 million pounds worth of corportation tax over
the next two years, well aren’t they admirable. Next time Cybergirl goes for a
large Americano – there’ll be soe negotiating at the till let me tell you. On
the plus side, is the tide finally turning? Has the subject that Cybergirl has
been banging on about since this blog first started four months ago finally
caught the public imagination enough to warrant winder scale boycotting?
2.
The
launch of the IPhone 5, it came, it saw, it conquered with 5 million sales and
counting, and then well everyone realized that it was almost identical to the
iPhone 4S – surprise surprise (ditto for the IPad mini).
3.
Hoaxes
dominated Facebook, if Cybergirl had ten pounds for every time a copyright
statement/human rights infringement/ridiculous legal terminology was posted,
reposted and then went onto insight general hysteria across the world’s largest
social networking site, well Cybergirl would be a very rich woman indeed.
4.
The
Kindle Fire hit the shops! Yes at last there was a viable contendor to the
Apple Monopoly (see point 2.) By October the device was said to be ‘the best
selling product on the company’s website.’ Which can’t be said for the IPad
Mini.
5.
Gangham
Fever spread like wildfire across the world… Yes if you had a beady eye on what
it takes to constitute a viral hit – well just rethink that, multiply it by 100
and add a dance akin to a horseback rider swaggering into a western bar.
6.
And
last but certainly not least the tragedy that was Apple Maps. In the 24 hours
since Google Maps was released for the IPhone it was downloaded 10 million
times – a statistic that surely speaks for itself.
So
there they are; our top five web related news stories of 2012. What lessons can
be learnt from these archane and yet often completely revelatory stories? 1)
Fame is a heady mix of electro beats, canny marketing and strange dancing – yes
it’s all about luck at the end of the day. 2) no matter how badly Apple behave
people will still buy their products (sad but true) and finally 3) if it’s a
written in a status update the majority of people will believe it – use this at
your peril…
Now for those images - my favourite of 2012:
Till next year ladies and gentlemen. Merry Christmas from all at The GWG...
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