Social Media 2011: The bullseyes and blunders that dominated chatter

In the past, the best way to review the year was to look back through newspaper headlines and pick out the stories that were thought to be the biggest. It wasn’t an exact science and required intuition and subjective reasoning to decide what was most important to the people that year. Today, social media gives us a relatively-accurate indicator about what the general population finds interesting enough to discuss.

2011 was loaded with major events from falling regimes to natural catastrophes. Celebrities made foolish mistakes. Politicians tanked their careers. Tech companies rose. Tech companies crumbled. Through it all, social media was there to spread the word about every major event in minutes, even seconds sometimes.

Our friends at Flowtown chronicled the year through the eyes of social media and put together the timeline below that highlights some of the major news that spread through Twitter, Facebook, and Google+ (including the launch of Google+ itself). Click to enlarge.