As another year winds down, the “Year in Review” lists start gearing up. As we celebrate this joyous season, whether you celebrate Hanukah, Christmas, Festivas or Kwanza, our gift to you is better than another tie that you don’t need – It’s our the Beanstalk 2010 Super Awesome Wonderfully Spectacular 2010 Year in Review. And no…you cannot return it for a refund.
Instead of just focusing on one area, I thought I would cover a few areas of interest and recap some of the highlights from the year.
The Internet:
The year seems to have been another one of global Internet dominance by the uber-mega-giant Google. I had thought about naming the post the “Year of Google” but there are others that deserve our attentions as well.
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- Google Places
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/04/introducing-google-places.html
This new service from Google allows business owners to update and manage their physical business location information. This information can be used to update their business listing so that it appears correctly within Google Maps and associated Google properties and search and Display Network sites.
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- The Google-Groupon Deal
https://beanstalkim.com/blog/2010/12/google-groupon-goopon/
Google offers a staggering $5.3 Billion (yes…pinky finger poised at the corner of your lip “billion” dollars) for the Coupon-per-Day Marketing giant Groupon, who later snubs the offer.
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- Google Instant
http://www.google.com/instant/
https://beanstalkim.com/blog/2010/09/google-instant-analysis/ (link no longer available)
Google Instant is a new search enhancement that shows results as you type. It is pushing the limits of Google’s technology and infrastructure in an effort to get you better search results, faster.
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- Google Chrome OS
http://www.chromium.org/chromium-os
A forthcoming Linux-based operating system designed by Google to work exclusively with web applications and based on the open source Chromium OS project. The expected launch date for retail hardware featuring Chrome OS has slipped since Google first announced the operating system on July 7, 2009: from late 2010 to early 2011 to, by some reports, mid-2011.
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- Google Caffeine
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/06/our-new-search-index-caffeine.html
From Google: “Caffeine provides 50 percent fresher results for web searches than our last index, and it’s the largest collection of web content we’ve offered. Whether it’s a news story, a blog or a forum post, you can now find links to relevant content much sooner after it is published than was possible ever before.”
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- HTML 5
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTML_5
According to the W3C timetable, it is estimated that HTML5 will reach W3C Recommendation by late 2010. However, the First Public Working Draft estimate was missed by 8 months, and Last Call and Candidate Recommendation were expected to be reached in 2008, but as of July 2010 HTML5 is still at Working Draft stage in the W3C….so it look as though it will be next year then.
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- Cloud Computing
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloud_computing
What is it? It is Internet-based computing, whereby shared servers provide resources, software, and data to computers and other devices on demand, as with the electricity grid. Cloud computing is a natural evolution of the widespread adoption of virtualization, Service-oriented architecture and utility computing.
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- Wiki Leaks
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WikiLeaks
Whistle-blowing website Wikileaks has dominated the news, both because of its steady drip feed of secret documents, but also because of the dealings of its enigmatic front man Julian Assange. Assange, is also accused by the Swedish authorities of one count of unlawful coercion, two counts of sexual molestation and one count of rape, all alleged to have been committed in August 2010.
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- Gawker Hacked
http://www.longislandpress.com/2010/12/16/gawker-hacked-twitter-linkin-ask-users-to-change-passwords/
A group hacked Gawker and posted the details of 1.5 million users, including their passwords, email addresses and usernames online. Since many people use the same password for the different sites they frequent, spammers were able to log into users accounts on other sites like Twitter, where they posted tweets about acai berries. In response, Twitter has told users to change their passwords.
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- Net Neutrality
https://beanstalkim.com/blog/2010/08/why-google-needs-to-stand-up-for-themselves/
An ongoing contentious issue that seems to divide so many people. Should the Internet be treated as a utility? Where everyone gets the same service and connection? Or should we pay for preferred levels of service?
Beanstalk CEO Dave Davies sums it up like so:
“Net Neutrality is, at it’s core, the idea that the Internet is a mandatory service and that complete equality is required in the way packets are treated as they flow across it. The idea that the Telco’s should have the ability to charge more for preferential treatment of certain packages (say …YouTube videos if Google slipped them a few extra bucks) violates this idea. Well who can argue that? Don’t I have the same rights to the Internet as everyone else?”
** Look for an update on the Net Neutrality Debate from Dave Davies coming soon to our Beanstalk Blog.
World News
…and in the news…on a more serious note; 2010 saw earthquakes, heat waves, floods, volcanoes, super typhoons, blizzards, landslides and droughts kill at least a quarter million people, making 2010 the deadliest year in more than a generation as well as the hottest ever on record
- Canada annihilates 😛 the US in 2010 Winter Olympic Games Men and Womens Hockey
- Time Magazine’s Person of the year: Mark Zuckerberg
- December saw the First total lunar eclipse occurring on the First Day of Winter in 372 years!
- Leslie Neilson dies (1926-2010) (“Surely you can’t be serious?”….sorry too soon?)
- Betty White is named Entertainer of the Year by the Associated Press
- Lady Gaga is MTV News Woman of the Year
- 7.0-Magnitude Earthquake Devastates Port-au-Prince, Haiti (Jan. 12)
- Obama Unveils $3.8 Trillion Budget (Feb. 1)
- Chilean Miners Rescue (Oct. 25)
- BP Oil Rig Explosion (Apr. 20)
Movies
In no particular order, or preference, here are some of the movies we went to see this year:
- The Social Network
- Kick-Ass
- Iron Man 2
- The A-Team
- Inception
- Salt
- Scott Pilgrim v.s. The World
- Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Pt. 1
- Tron 2
- Robin Hood
You Tube Videos
No Year in Review list would be complete without a list of the top YouTube videos of the year (Canadian Version):
In the strangest transformation of the year, the Gregory Brothers took the quirky television interview Antoine Dodson gave after his sister’s attempted assault (itself a viral video) and turned it into a chart-topper.
The pop music parody loomed large in 2010, thanks to Barely Political’s take on Ke$ha’s “Tik Tok” and the popularity of Key of Awe$ome, a weekly musical comedy show that’s been seen over 100M times.
Old Spice’s Super Bowl ad was an Internet sensation, but a few months later, it spawned something else: a real-time, social media campaign that generated over 100M views in a week.
Paul Vasquez’s emotional response to a rainbow in Yosemite National Park took six months to go viral, but once it did — after Jimmy Kimmel Tweeted it — “double rainbow all the way” became an essential part of 2010’s pop culture lexicon.
When Greyson Chance’s sixth grade performance of “Paparazzi” hit the web, it drew a massive audience, the attention of Lady Gaga herself, and ultimately led Chance to sign to Ellen DeGeneres’ new music label.
The Gregory Brothers took another of the year’s biggest viral videos, “Double Rainbow,” and transformed it into an auto-tuned sensation.
A toddler bawls because she adores Justin Bieber: “I love him,” “I don’t get to see him all day,” “I want him to be one of my family.” Later, Jimmy Kimmel brings her face-to-face with her idol.
Classified turn the Canadian anthem on its head with this viral music video about the country’s unique character and culture. Shot in Halifax, Nova Scotia.
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- Tom Browkaw Explains Canada to Americans
With all eyes on Canada for the 2010 Vancouver Olympics, a clip explaining the difference between the U.S. and its northern neighbour took off.
In 2010, OK Go severed ties with their label and went independent, joining the YouTube Partner Program. Meanwhile, their endless pursuit of creative music videos delivered this ambitious homage to Rube Goldberg.
As we say goodbye to another year (depending upon your calendar of course!) and prepare to welcome in the new one, let us remember those who have departed and to welcome those that have joined us.
Let us reflect upon those events and happenings that define our experiences and shape our world. And let us all find happiness in those that make us laugh and in those that bring us joy.
From all of us here at Beanstalk, we would like to wish you all the very best from this holiday season.