Best of 2012: staff and readers' picks (part 2) | PandoDaily

By David Holmes
On December 27, 2012

From IPOs and shakeouts to acquisitions and crunches, it?s been another exciting, bewildering year in tech. Continuing with our year-end coverage, here?s part 2 of our ?Best of 2012? series.

Best Viral Video

Staff pick:?Dollar Shave Club. Yes, Gangnam Style has a record 1 billion YouTube hits, but for our purposes, let?s give it to DSC because it?s the only one that fulfilled a business objective for a startup. And hey, 7.8 million views is nothing to snuff at, especially for a startup promotional video.

Reader pick:?Gangnam Style

Here it is, for the?1,062,572,014th time:

Most Innovative News Organization:

[Image courtesy missantsypants on Flickr]

Staff pick: Buzzfeed.?This category is a controverisial one as you might imagine in a newsroom like PandoDaily that?s avowedly anti-page views. But like it or hate it, Buzzfeed is doing something new. Not only have they combined cat videos with investigative reporting (to varying degrees of success) but they?ve dramatically pioneered new business models, even though they have the metrics to make millions off of lame banner ads. Jonah Peretti is one of the best thinkers in the world on social sharing, virality and sponsored content, and this is a company committed to going long when many other media companies are content for quick flips or building lifestyle businesses.

Reader pick:?Buzzfeed

Social Network of the Year

[Image courtesy Victor1558 on Flickr]

Staff pick:?LinkedIn. Yeah, Pinterest took off out of nowhere, Facebook finally went public and Instagram had an unexpected $1 billion exit on a skeleton crew. But LinkedIn is the only member of the mega-Consumer IPOcrop that is still trading above its offering price. Sorry, but that wins for literally billions of reasons.

Reader pick:?Twitter

Stay tuned tomorrow for our picks for ?Startup of the Year,? ?Entrepreneur of the Year? and more as our Best of 2012 coverage continues.

David Holmes

David Holmes is an LA-based journalist and the co-founder of Explainer Music, a production company specializing in journalistic music videos. His writing has appeared at FastCompany.com, the Daily Dot, NewYorker.com, and Grist.

You can follow David on Twitter @holmesdm

Source: http://pandodaily.com/2012/12/27/best-of-2012-staff-and-readers-picks-part-2/

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