It’s Social Media Week around the world this week, and from Toronto to New York, San Francisco to Sao Paulo, business leaders, marketers and technologists are talking shop about people’s relationships online, the dollars and cents of “earned media” and new ways people are discovering content through the lens of their friends.

Two of the hottest social trends relating to Yahoo!’s business are social content and the second screen experience, bringing together mobile apps with TV viewing. Consumers and advertisers are showing us they love to connect socially around Yahoo! content, and it’s a big area of focus for us in 2012. So naturally, these are the topics we’ll be discussing in multiple locations at Social Media Week.

“Social Bar” is Now Open Globally

Over the past three months, our Social Bar feature, which enables people to discover content across Yahoo! through their friends, has been activated across nearly 100 Yahoo! sites around the globe – from Yahoo! News to Yahoo! Finance, omg!, Shine, Yahoo! Screen and many more of our popular sites across the Americas, APAC and EMEA regions. We initially saw Social Bar really take off on Yahoo! News in the US (we were calling it the Yahoo! News Activity feature before), and thanks to the Yahoo! Publishing Platform, we’ve been able to turn it on globally very quickly.

A few interesting metrics:

• More than 25 million people have opted-in to Social Bar around the world
• 2 million people are using it actively every day
• 3 million “reads” are shared from Yahoo! to Facebook every day
• Not surprisingly, younger users, ages 18-34, are the most active

Social TV: What Yahoo! Consumers are Into this Winter on IntoNow

These days, most of us are actually watching more TV than ever, and doing something online while we’re sitting in front of the TV. While multitasking in the living room is nothing new, new smart phone apps and the richness of tablet content brings a whole new dimension to the experience. On mobile devices, we’re seeing a high amount of social activity through the outrageously popular IntoNow from Yahoo! experience for iPad, iPhone, and Android devices. In the month of January, 43% of people used IntoNow from Yahoo! on their iPhones, 34% of users accessed it via iPad, while 23% used the app on Android.

Regardless of the device they’re using, engagement is growing deeper and more interactive, whether it’s around sports, critically acclaimed dramas, reality TV, or politics and news. Recent collaborations with Pepsi MAX and other advertisers for the Super Bowl, Spike TV during CES, and ABC News for the Republican debates have been hugely successful. More fun is around the corner for the Oscars, March Madness and the Olympics. The most tagged TV shows and shows with the most user comments have been:

Most Tagged Shows:

1. NFL Football
2. The Big Bang Theory
3. Family Guy
4. How I Met Your Mother
5. CES All Access Live

Most User Comments:

1. NFL Football
2. Republican Debate
3. CES All Access Live
4. NBA Basketball
5. The Big Bang Theory

So, this week in celebration of Social Media Week, Yahoo! leaders have been diving deep in panel discussions from social content and advertising to social TV in New York and San Francisco.  For those attending Social Media Week, check out our panels on Thursday and Friday.

Harnessing the Power of Social Content for Advertisers

3 pm ET, Thursday, February 16 in New York

• Jonathan Katzman, director of product management, Yahoo!
• Patrick Albano, vice president of sales, social mobile and innovation, Yahoo!
• Robin Zucker, director of marketing, Yahoo!

The Future of Social TV

4 pm PT, Friday, February 17 in San Francisco

• Adam Cahan, vice president of IntoNow at Yahoo!

Over the coming months, Yahoo! experiences will continue to evolve, delivering a more social and personalized reflection of the content you love. Check back in with us here at Yodel for more soon.