1 - Facebook Surpasses Google: Though it might not yet beat Google in terms of unique visitors, Facebook just took down Yahoo to become the third most visited site on the internet. However, for the first time, in March Facebook surpassed Google in weekly hits, topping the search giant, which received 7.03 percent of web visits, according to Bloomberg. 2 - Mark Zuckerberg: TIME's Person of Year: To top off an incredible year, Mark Zuckerberg was named TIME magazine's person of the year on December 15. The recognition was the icing on the cake for a tremendous year for the social networking giant and one of the world's youngest billionaires. 3 - Kanye Joins Twitter: Despite denouncing Twitter in 2009, Kanye West took on the medium with full force this year eventually tweeting, "I'm sorry Taylor," just before the anniversary of the now infamous MTV Music Awards incident. 4 - Haiti Relief: One of the remarkable things to come out of the earthquake in Haiti was the tremendous fundraising effort online. While pictures of the disaster spread immediately, it only took Wyclef Jean and his Yele Haiti Foundation 24 hours to rais $1 million through $5 donations using Twitter and mobile donations. Though not every campaign was as successful as Wyclef's this was a unique use of social media, new to 2010. 5 - The Social Network: Nothing says mainstream like having Hollywood make a movie made about you. As big as Facebook is, almost nothing shows how popular the site has become as the mega-hit "The Social Network." However, the movie offered up a not-so-complementary depiction of Zuckerberg, who donated $100 million to Newark public schools just a week before the movie's release. 6 - Justin Bieber Rules Twitter: Few people have the power to make Twitter change the way they do things, but Bieber did just that. In May Twitter made some changes so that their trending topics reflected trends of the moment and not broader cultural references, upsetting Bieber fans as he fell from trending topics. 7 - Facebook Hits 500 Million Users: Facebook had quite a year. In July the social networking site hit 500 million users (and growing) since its 2004 inception.
Online fund-raising campaign like the one for Haiti could be put to good use again. I hope somebody is doing some campaign efforts like this one for the Japanese earthquake victims. There's nothing more spectacular than having an entire social network contribute to a collective effort to help people in need.