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"The end is near. I mean the end of 2012, not the world, as dunderheaded Mayan-acolytes believe. Even without looming global annihilation, it\u2019s been the most manic of annums, with extreme highs and heartbreaking lows.\nIt can be difficult, at times like these, to identify winners and losers. No doubt there are people, companies and products either side of the fortune spectrum, and we've been witness to every impressive success and soul-crushing defeat. Those successes certainly fall in the \"winners\" category, while the defeated? Well, they definitely lost, though some might hesitate to call them \u201CLosers,\u201D per se.  Remember, we all have our good times and our bad. \nWith that in mind, I hope we can cheer 2012\u2019s winners and empathize with the year\u2019s losers.\nWinner: Marissa Mayer\nChip Somodevilla/Getty Images News/Getty Images\nThe former Google golden girl has shown her mettle as the new CEO of Yahoo. Leveraging brand affinity and relationships to revive tottering products like Flickr, forming and strengthening new partnerships and gobbling up smaller companies, Mayer is positioning Yahoo for real success in 2013. And she had a baby. That\u2019s what I call winning.\nLosers: AirTime and Sean Parker\nImage courtesy of Flickr, jdlasica\nRemember AirTime? The real-time Facebook-driven video chat and sharing platform is still alive, but I challenge you to find a room full of people who know or care. The product was vexed from the start. If I close my eyes, I can replay the entire bizarre launch event.\nNapster co-founder and former Facebook president Sean Parker amassed an impressive collection of celebrities (Jim Carrey, Julia Louise-Dreyfus, Ed Helms, Joel McHale and others) to join him onstage as he unveiled and then demonstrated the new services. It was like the clean version of Chatroulette, but with video sharing and celebrities. \nThe demo was a disaster, more fail than function. In fact, the less said about it, the better.\nFor now, AirTime is a high-profile blip from 2012, which will likely be forgotten in 2013.\nWinner: NASA Mars Curiosity Team\nImage courtesy of NASA\nWhat an astounding feat. NASA guided a giant, working laboratory to a soft landing on a distant planet in one of the most complicated and awe-inspiring series of maneuvers ever witnessed. \nIf you didn\u2019t think it was a big deal, all you had to do is watch the jubilant Curiosity team as Curiosity Rover safely touched down on the dusty Mars surface. The seven minutes of terror lived up to its name, and NASA scored a clear win in 2012, one that has continued to pay dividends ever since the landing (The pictures! The discoveries!). \nSure, they punked us once with a \u201Cbig discovery\u201D that was really just some big misunderstanding, but that\u2019s a tiny blot on an otherwise unblemished mission. The year 2013 should continue the good Curiosity times.\nWinner: Big Bird\nImage courtesy of Flickr, LR_PTY\nSeven-foot-tall birds always stand out, but do they remain relevant? Big Bird, the giant puppet (for the kids reading: I\u2019m kidding! He\u2019s a real bird), the bird that\u2019s roamed the streets and alleys of Children\u2019s Workshop\u2019s Sesame Street for more than four decades became the center of political and social discussion one night in October, when Republican Presidential Candidate Mitt Romney said this during his first debate with President Barack Obama:  \u201CI like PBS. I love Big Bird. But I am not going to keep spending money on things [we have] to borrow money from China to pay for.\u201D\nWithin minutes people were tweeting about Big Bird with concerns that Romney wanted to kill Sesame Street. More specifically, that Big Bird\u2019s\u2026er...goose was cooked. It\u2019s hard to say how much of an impact it had on the election, but for a few days, at least, everyone was talking about Big Bird, creating memes with his likeness and using him in political campaign videos. Big Bird even made an appearance on Saturday Night Live.\nExciting times for the world\u2019s biggest and most gentle of birds. It was a win for our feathered friend and maybe for public broadcasting, too.\nWinner: Reddit\nImage courtesy of Reddit\nThis year marked big, big, big-name \u201CAsk Me Anythings\u201D (AMAs) on Reddit. The platform hosted everyone from Snoop Dog (or Lion) to Jeopardy Champ, from Ken Jennings to comedian Louis CK to This American Life\u2019s Ira Glass and, most impressively, the president of the United States. \nThat last AMA was a true watershed moment for \u201CThe Front Page of the Internet.\u201D People who had never heard of the Internet news site were introduced to Reddit\u2019s unique style and culture. \u201CAMA,\u201D they saw, wasn\u2019t lip service: Members really could ask anything \u2014 not that they\u2019d always got an answer. Obama\u2019s Q&amp;A with random people seemed pretty well vetted. For his part, Obama gave lengthy, insightful answers. Some were about politics and world affairs and a few, like \u201CJordan \u2014 I'm a Bulls guy,\u201D by way of answering with his favorite basketball player, were casual and real. \nThis and other landmark AMAs put Reddit on the map for a far broader audience than ever before. I can only imagine the AMAs we\u2019ll see next year.\nLoser: Color\nImage courtesy of Color\nI was one of the very first to try this must-have social, \u201Cnear you\u201D iPhone app. I was disappointed on day one, and the service, which started as a photo sharing service and pivoted to video sharing, then pivoted to Facebook integration and then pivoted out of existence, never found its way. \nThe service also burned through $41 million. That\u2019s a loss no matter how you slice it.\nWinner: Rovio\nImage courtesy of Rovio\nOur love affair with Angry Birds is, it seems, far from over. In 2012, the franchise extended its brand into Angry Birds Space, Bad Piggies, board games, a movie in 2016 and, most notably, Angry Birds Star Wars. It\u2019s true, Amazing Alex is not the runaway hit Rovio hoped for (Alex has around 1,700 ratings in the App Store, while the Star Wars edition earned almost 14,000). But it\u2019s a good game that did not embarrass the brand. Angry Birds Star Wars, on the other hand, is an all-out win, expertly polished and a real hoot for fans and SW neophytes.\nThe Birds are winning, the Pigs are winning and, most importantly, mobile gamers are winning. Oink!\nWinner: Instagram\nImage courtesy of Instagram\nInstagram scored the biggest win of all when Facebook snapped it up for $1 billion in April. That is pure, unadulterated \u201Cwin.\u201D Facebook pretty much kept its hands off the super popular photo-sharing platform for much of 2012, and Instagram used the time to launch a huge software update that improved Instagram in myriad ways. \nWhen Hurricane Sandy hit, Instagram was there to help millions and millions of people share stunning images that told the tale of the storm from the ground. It was all win, until\u2026\nLoser: Instagram\nImage courtesy of Instagram\nInstagram was the most popular photo-sharing app on the iPhone, also a favorite to Twitter users like me. Too bad 2012 saw the  Twitter/Instagram friendship sour. Twitter made it harder for people to find Twitter users on Instagram, and Instagram pulled back from the micro-blogging service. Now you can\u2019t even see Instagram photos inside your Twitter stream \u2014 you have to click a link.\nThings got even worse when Instagram\u2019s co-founder Kevin Systrom started acting a bit too much like his new parents, spouting bizarre new terms of service polices that read like a punch in the face to every Instagram user \u2014 some of whom abandoned ship.\n2013 will be an important year for Instagram. Can it regain its momentum, or will Facebook\u2019s Borg-like influence ruin it for good?\nLosers: iPad 3 Buyers\nImage via iStockphoto, bmcent1 \nThe iPad Retina or iPad 3 is an excellent tablet. In fact, Apple has yet to build a tablet I didn\u2019t like (I like the iPad Mini, too, just wish it was way cheaper and had as much power as competing seven-inch tablets). Still, those who bought an iPad Retina in March could not have been too happy to see a more powerful replacement arrive barely eight months later. Those who wait on long, day-of-launch lines to buy the latest Apple doo-dad felt a bit punked by the surprise announcement.  \nWinner: Microsoft\nImage by Mashable\nYes, calling Microsoft a winner in 2012 might be overstating the case. It\u2019s still not even close to dominant in either the tablet or mobile phone race, but it is accomplished. \nThe company successfully launched a radically reimagined OS to good reviews, updated its Windows Phone platform, added more hardware and blew us away with a surprise tablet announcement. The products are innovative and show true attention to detail and customer preferences. Better yet, most market analysts are predicting healthy growth for at least the Windows Phone platform.\nNext year will prove an interesting time for Microsoft. It has to convince consumers that they can learn Windows 8\u2019s somewhat schizophrenic interface and it must convince Android and iPhone users to actually switch to the Windows Phone 8 platform.\nWinner: Nate Silver, Data, Science\nPaul Zimmerman/Getty Images\nThe New York Times blogger correctly predicted the presidential election results in 50 out of 50 states, and he did it with data and math. I think it\u2019s a fair bet that people who wanted to ignore Silver's stunning performance in the 2008 presidential election will be beating a path to his door in 2016. It\u2019s a win for Mr. Silver and a win for everyone who believes in the power of data and clear-headed analysis.\nLoser: Violentacrez\nImage courtesy of CNN\nMichael Brutsch, the former Reddit Mod (or moderator) was forced into the light by Gawker\u2019s Adrian Chen earlier this year. He\u2019s just an average guy with a wife, family and job. Well, strike that last part. \nBrutsch, previously known as Violentacrez on Reddit, lost his job when Chen revealed that Brutsch moderated some of Reddit\u2019s darkest corners. He worked hard to ride the line between illegal and simply objectionable and outrageous. All in all, though, it was content that would make most people blush or become very, very angry. \nChen made it impossible for Brutsch to hide behind the cloak of anonymity. The guy lost his job and his Reddit standing. \nWinner: Apple\nImage courtesy of Apple\nIf you\u2019re watching Apple\u2019s stock price movement every day and thinking it means something, you\u2019re wrong. Apple started the year at $400 and is still over $500. \nIt makes more sense to focus on the company\u2019s extraordinary success, even in the face of public backlash. iOS 6 included the much derided Apple Maps, but no one is trading in iPhone for Android devices as a result. In fact, Apple\u2019s hardware sales are still, by every measure, robust. \nLast but not least, Tim Cook has had an interesting year, but he\u2019s clearly grown into his role as CEO of one of the world\u2019s most innovative companies. \nLoser: Digg\nImage by Mashable\nDigg was Reddit before Reddit was Reddit. It was the homepage of the Internet for millions of online denizens, offering a sprawling collection of news, tech, oddities and humor. Best of all, the users decided what was good (Diggable) and what was not (burying). \nLike all good systems, though, it eventually became corrupted by a small cadre of over-influential users. Digg tried to control them and the whole thing spun out of control, until this year. In 2012, Digg pivoted to, well, something that looks like a botched Pinterest knockoff. The design is simple, and Digg numbers are pretty darn low. Plus, Digg is no longer part of the public/Internet discourse. It\u2019s simply not relevant. Just ask Digg founder Kevin Rose, who long ago left the company in his rearview mirror to work for Google.\nOther Winners:\nGoogle: Android is an unqualified success. 2013 will see more consolidation and control, and the app side will only become stronger, which should make Apple nervous.\nSamsung: Kicking butt and taking names in phones (Galaxys are big but awesome).\nPresident Barack Obama: Well, duh.\nOther Losers:\nMitt Romney: Sorry, big guy.\nZynga: The bloom is off the rose for social gaming on Facebook and even on mobile phones (when was the last time you played Draw Something?). Let\u2019s see if it can recover in 2013.\nGroupon: Andrew Mason says things are all right, but the public and stock holders still aren\u2019t buying it.\nThumbnail image courtesy of iStockphoto, hidesy"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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