As we reflect on what happened in the past year in our lives and in the world, it's hard to remember each moment and what happened when.

Just this past year, Will and Kate had their magnificent wedding, Steve Jobs and Elizabeth Taylor passed away, Japan was ravaged by a 9.0 earthquake and a tsunami, and the list goes on and on.

In my year, I spent time in Northern California, Vancouver, Minneapolis, and Montreal. I went snowboarding and wine tasting, I learned how to make cheese, I attended the Clinton Foundation Concert and saw Bono, Lady Gaga and Usher perform live, and I found out I will become an aunt.

I’ve been thinking about the past year a lot since one of my biggest recent projects has been creating a social extension for Yahoo!’s popular Year In Review program. Year In Review brings together data and insights gleaned from search and news trends and packages it up into top 10 lists, blog posts and videos. Looking at it from a social perspective, we knew we could make the year’s stories even more personal.

We had a lot of ideas, and ultimately created My Year In Review, a Facebook app that brings together the top headlines and images of the year with a user’s own activities in a timeline set to music. The experience is dynamic, beautiful, and emotional, bringing together moments you may have not thought of for month.

Depending on how heavy a Facebook user you are, the more times you play the experience, the more different versions you’ll see, with new pictures, news events, and new timeline images to share.

Don’t let us just tell you about it, though – see your 2011 My Year In Review.

A look back at the year in social at Yahoo!

It has been a big year for social at Yahoo! and I love how the company has embraced social as a medium not just for sharing out content, but for connecting with fans. We celebrated Yahoo! birthdays and milestones, launched new programs, and broke news – and the responses we got were tremendous. It has been encouraging to hear about how long people have used Yahoo!, the events they are most passionate about, and what we mean to them.

With our new focus on social, we also grew our fan base. The Yahoo! Facebook footprint now has more than 23 million fans, the Twitter footprint more than 1.6 million. 2011 was a year for experimenting, learning and encouraging change. We launched Google+ pages, worked with inspiring social influencers, and created a number of impactful social programs, including sweepstakes, games, the Summer Movies Popcorn Giveaway, and programs that supported exclusive live events, like the Twilight premiere and the Clinton Foundation Concert.

The year has been a lot of work, but also very rewarding. Yahoo! has been smart about using social media as a key part of the strategy to extend and enhance its properties and programs, and I’m proud to be a part of the team that created social experiences that touched millions of people.

Thank you and happy New Year!  I can’t wait for what’s in store in 2012.

Francine Kizner
Social Marketing Program Manager @KizzieFK

Editor’s Note: This article is part of a series entitled, “In My Own Words,” that gives employees the opportunity to share their own stories about Yahoo!. Feel like yodeling your own? Post your Yahoo! story on your social networks using the hashtag #myYahoostory.