2012 review: what you may have missed

To begin with, here’s Google’s list of the top 10 trending news of 2012:

1. Hurricane Sandy
2. Kate Middleton pictures released
3. Olympics 2012
4. SOPA debate
5. Costa Concordia crash
6. Presidential Debate
7. Stratosphere jump
8. Penn State scandal
9. Trayvon Martin shooting
10. Pussy Riot

And here are some interesting stats of 2012: 

• Global mobile internet traffic reached 13% and is rapidly growing; in India mobile traffic surpassed desktop
• More and more mobile content creates revenue, of which 67% comes from apps and from 33% ads
• 48% of American kids want an iPad for Christmas
• Amount of global digital information created and shared reached almost 2 zettabytes (=1 trillion gigabytes!)
• On Black Friday 2012 iOS users shopped online 4 times as much as Android users

In her presentation on the current State of the Web, Kleiner Perkins partner Mary Meeker talked about the trends and forces which shaped our life in 2012. Here are some highlights of the year’s most important developments: 

• Up-to-date universally accessible knowledge
• Accessible and shareable content
• Real-time global crowd-sourced news
• Relatively inexpensive devices
• Unprecedented global technology innovation
• Ability to reach millions of users in record time
• Graphic user interface replaced by touch, gestures and voice interface
• Smartphone camera replaced the dedicated digital camera
• Files and folders stored in a cloud
• Crowd-sourced investment and product design
• Note-taking, navigation, finance and health awareness handled via mobile apps
• HR is impossible without LinkedIn
• Toddlers starting to learn with tablets

2012 was the year of Barrack Obama’s reelection, Gangnam Style, hurricane Sandy, London Olympics, Draw Something, Curiosity rover landing on Mars, Facebook IPO, iPhone 5, skydive from space, Facebook timeline, Android Market becoming Google Play, Microsoft launchingWindows 8, Encyclopedia Britannica becoming digital-only after 244 years in print, internet censorship debates over SOPA and PIPA, KONY, Google Glasses, European Football Championship held in Ukraine, Grumpy Cat meme (the one below is probably the most popular one), Tiesto’s live performance on Twitter, Facebook acquisition of Instagram and blocking of The Pirate Bay.

Wondering what 2013 will bring about!