While 2011 was a very busy year for the technology industry, the constant rate of innovation and activity in the market shows that things probably won’t slow down in 2012. Below, we’ve rounded up some of GigaOM’s biggest stories of the year — roughly in the order that they occurred — with a bit of insight on what each could mean for 2012.

• AT&T’s billion bid to buy T-Mobile
• Facebook makes its data center details public
• Google and Facebook battle for the social networking crown
• Netflix screws up — again and again
• Spotify launches in the US
• Google buys Motorola Mobility for .5 billion
• Solyndra crashes and burns
• Hewlett-Packard’s soap opera
• Steve Jobs dies at age 56
• The tech IPO makes a big comeback

AT&T’s billion bid to buy T-Mobile

Sunday mornings are usually pretty sleepy in terms of business news, but March 20th, 2011 was an exception. That’s when AT&T announced its plan to buy T-Mobile USA from Deutsche Telekom AG for a whopping billion. A deal that huge naturally catches the attention of everyone: The media, consumer groups, industry competitors, and perhaps most importantly, federal regulators. After nearly nine months of back-and-forth about the legality of the merger that came to be known as AT&T-Mo, the deal fell apart: On December 19, AT&T ended its bid to buy T-Mobile as its CEO Randall Stephenson pledged to “continue to be aggressive in leading the mobile Internet revolution.”

What this means for 2012: As GigaOM’s Stacey Higginbotham pointed out, despite the failure of AT&T-Mo, major changes in the wireless space are inevitable and consolidation will continue:

Now that the deal is off the table, the industry can return to solving the big question that plagues wireless in the U.S.: How the heck will operators get the spectrum and build the networks they need to support robust demand for 4G wireless services and still make money. … AT&T’s bid to get more spectrum wasn’t just an attempt to take out a competitor; it really did need more spectrum for its LTE network, and having T-Mobile’s AWS airwaves ready for an LTE deployment would have made AT&T’s migration path a lot simpler. As operators move from 3G to 4G services such as LTE, they are learning the costs associated with remaking and upgrading their networks are substantial. And as they look ahead to spectrum-hogging standards such as LTE-Advanced, they need more megahertz.

Facebook makes its data center details public

Facebook's Prineville, Oregon datacenter

Most big Internet companies spend a lot of time and money on designing and maintaining data centers. But typically, these companies keep the nitty-gritty details of how they manage the servers that power their operations to themselves — the makeup and quantity of servers that run Google has long been some of the search company’s most highly-guarded secrets, for example (though Google has been sharing that data as of late). Facebook, however, decided to start telling the world about its data center details.

In April 2011, the social networking company debuted the Open Compute Project, in which it provided full specifications of its computing infrastructure. The reason, Facebook says on its OpenCompute.org website, is to help improve technology as a whole:

“We want you to tell us where we didn’t get it right and suggest how we could improve. And opening the technology means the community will make advances that we wouldn’t have discovered if we had kept it secret.”

What this means for 2012: More sharing in the infrastructure space, particularly around how to reduce energy consumption of data centers. Executives from Intel, RackSpace, Arista Networks and Goldman Sachs all joined the Open Compute Project’s board of directors. Of course, pledging to be “open” is almost always good PR, but with this particular initiative Facebook is leading the way with concrete efforts for real transparency in a major industry issue.

Google and Facebook battle for the social networking crown

In June, Google launched Google+, its newest answer to the social networking space that in recent years has been dominated by Facebook. That move seemed to spark renewed vigor from Facebook to maintain its social edge and the next week at a quickly-assembled press event for a new in-Facebook video chat app powered by Skype, Mark Zuckerberg kicked off what he called his company’s “Launching Season 2011.” This season also seemingly culminated with the September debut of Timeline, a dramatically different new Facebook user interface. Google, meanwhile, directed increasing amounts of its attention on trying to make Google+ a success.

What this means for 2012: Even more competitive activity and expect the year to be cut throat. Facebook and Google are showing no signs of backing down from the battle, and with its own bold new redesign, Twitter has thrown its cap into the ring to be the social networking site of choice.

Netflix screws up — again and again

Netflix CEO Reed Hastings

What a year it’s been for Netflix — and not in a good way. It all began in June, when the company announced changes in its pricing structure (splitting its DVD rental business from its online streaming business) that would significantly boost prices for the vast majority of customers. Not surprisingly, that didn’t go over so well. So in September, CEO Reed Hastings apologized for the changes and took back the price hike. Instead, he said, Netflix’s DVD rental business would be rebranded as Quikster and essentially put up for sale as the Netflix brand moved to a streaming-only model. That didn’t go over so well, either. So less than a month later, Netflix once again backtracked, killing the Quikster proposal and electing to keep DVD rentals in its core business. Wall Street analysts lauded Netflix’s ultimate decision to keep DVD rentals alive, but Wall Street punished the company nevertheless: Netflix share price dropped from nearly 0 earlier this year to about now.

What this means for 2012: Netflix has its work cut out for it, having closed out 2011 with its lowest customer satisfaction ratings in company history. GigaOM’s Ryan Lawler recently put it thusly:

“Netflix is still the clear leader in the online streaming space, with about 24 million subscribers. But for years Netflix has relied on the virtuous cycle of positive word-of-mouth to help propel its growth. With customer satisfaction declining rapidly, it’ll have to work harder to retain existing customers and to win new ones.”

Spotify launches in the US

Spotify, the popular Europe-based on-demand music streaming service, finally made its highly anticipated debut in the United States in mid-July. A couple months later, the service got an extra boost with a deep integration with Facebook that let users easily listen to songs on Spotify and share them with friends through the social networking service.

What this means for 2012: The buzz around Spotify seems to have spurred other online music services to bring their A-games to the space. Expect more innovation from Pandora, MOG, Rdio, Rhapsody and others.

Google buys Motorola Mobility for .5 billion

Andy Rubin (Google) and Dr. Sanjay K. Jha (Motorola) onstage at Mobilize 2009

Google shook up the dog days of mid-August when it announced plans to acquire Motorola Mobility for .5 billion. Once the deal is closed (it’s expected to go through in early 2012) Google will have bought access to Motorola’s portfolio of 17,000 current patents and 7,500 patent applications across wireless standards and non-essential patents on wireless service delivery.

What this means for 2012: The deal is such a huge one that all of its ramifications will take a while to become clear, but Google’s ultimate goal is to further strengthen the mobile strategy it built with the Android mobile operating system. With some 700,000 Android devices being activated daily, Google is already well-positioned in the mobile space — the Motorola investment shows that the company is in it for the long haul in mobile.

Solyndra crashes and burns

Solar panel maker Solyndra was one of the highest profile companies the cleantech space has seen in recent years, garnering visits from President Obama, and applause from Vice President Biden, DOE Secretary Steven Chu and then California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. The company even received a 5 million loan from the U.S. government.

So when the company filed for bankruptcy in August 2011, laid off more than 1,000 employees, and essentially lost the entire tax-payer funded loan, it was a huge blow for a number of industries: Technology, venture capital, and of course solar power. Ucilia Wang wrote in-depth about the story behind Solyndra’s rise and fall for GigaOM.

The bigger trend behind Solyndra has been global crashing solar prices. Thanks partly to Chinese solar companies flooding the market with low (and below) cost solar panels, solar panel makers throughout the world have been struggling and have been going out of businesses. While that’s not good news for those firms, it’s great for consumers, businesses and utilities that are buying solar  panels — solar has never been cheaper.

What this means for 2012: Being that the Solyndra implosion will go down as one of the biggest venture capital losses in history, VC firms will be understandably hesitant to invest in solar companies for quite some time. Also, the federal grants awarded to Solyndra have become a punchline of sorts in the political arena, so the U.S. government may also shy away from supporting solar companies for a while.

Hewlett-Packard’s soap opera

In August, Hewlett-Packard raised eyebrows when it announced plans to spend billion in cash to acquire Autonomy, a UK-based software and services company and said it would look into selling off its billion-a-year PC business. Investors and the industry at large were stunned by both moves which, apparently, were the last straw for HP’s board as well. A month later, HP fired Leo Apotheker, the CEO who brokered the deal and set the PC change in motion, and brought in former Ebay CEO Meg Whitman as his replacement.

What this means for 2012: As GigaOM’s Barb Darrow writes, 2012 is a crucial time for HP to work to “repair its reputation and restore itself to the status of IT icon.” Whether the company will succeed in doing so remains to be seen.

Steve Jobs dies at age 56

Apple co-founder Steve Jobs’ death on October 5 was a big story for the world even beyond the tech community. Although his passing was not completely unexpected — Jobs had suffered from pancreatic cancer and related complications for some time, and had stepped down from the CEO role at Apple in August because of his health — his death deeply affected many people. Jobs was hugely influential through his work at Apple and as a tech industry figure in general.

What this means for 2012: WordPress founder Matt Mullenweg recently told GigaOM that he thinks Jobs will affect tech in the months and years to come:

“Steve Jobs’ passing affected me more than I expected. I think we’re going to enter a golden age of design, just by virtue of thousands and thousands of founders and designers asking themselves, ‘What would Steve do?’ The things that these people will create will be even bigger than Apple. That’s part of his legacy.”

The web IPO makes a big comeback

A number of venture-backed web companies made their stock market debuts this year. LinkedIn (LNKD), Pandora Media, Zillow, Groupon, Zynga, and TripAdvisor- all went public in 2011. While not all of these companies had stellar post-IPO stock price performances, the very fact they got out the gate is a win in itself for investors and founders.

What this means for 2012: By the looks of it, the IPO wave is just getting started. Analysts say 2012 promises to be another big year for tech IPOs, and in the spring 2012 public offering expected from Facebook will likely be the star of the show.

Some images courtesy of HackingNetflix, whiteafrican, hyku, jdlasica, and Mathieu Thouvenin.

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Zynga executives and investors ringing the NASDAQ opening bell

Zynga held its initial public offering on Friday, raising billion in a stock market debut that valued the company at some billion at the height of the day’s trading. However, Zynga’s stock did not have the day one share price “pop” seen by some other recent web IPOs such as LinkedIn and Groupon: The stock closed Friday afternoon at .50 per share, a pretty significant drop from its IPO price of . Predictably, that’s left the door open for speculation about what this means for the viability of Zynga itself and the tech IPO market in general.

But it’s important to remember that IPO day is literally just the beginning for Zynga’s new life as a publicly traded company. Now that its ownership is shared by a much larger group of investors, Zynga will be subjected to closer scrutiny than ever before: The judgement does not stop here. There are several important events on the near-term horizon that pertain to Zynga, and checking in on the share price at those times could be even more telling as to how investors value the social gaming business.

The way I see it, the potential events to look out for are:

• When Facebook goes public
  This is a biggie. Facebook is said to be preparing to hold an IPO in the spring of 2012, and Zynga’s business as it stands today is hugely dependent on the social networking giant. In fact, Zynga’s S-1 filing to the SEC minced no words in outlining the risks inherent in the closeness of this relationship. If Facebook’s IPO performs strongly, that could be great for Zynga — but if it’s lackluster, Zynga may well feel the crunch. Or Facebook’s IPO could do well and Zynga’s stock price could suffer. (The stock market is an unpredictable thing.) Either way, Facebook’s IPO day will almost certainly have an effect on Zynga’s market valuation.

• When Zynga declares real independence from Facebook
  For all of Zynga’s reliance on Facebook today, the company is working hard to become more successful as a standalone gaming destination. Zynga made a major step towards independence in October when it unveiled “Zynga Direct,” which CEO Mark Pincus said is an over-arching strategy for the company to establish a direct relationship with its users. The first part of Zynga Direct is an upcoming social games platform, codenamed internally Project Z, a web platform in which users will be able to play any Zynga game within the same environment on any browser — rather than within Facebook.

  It’s a delicate balance, but it may just be a matter of time before Zynga makes more concrete steps toward autonomy, such as only releasing the lower-budget older versions of games on Facebook so users who want to play the newer ones have to go to Zynga directly. Independence for Zynga will mean it gets to keep a lot more money — Facebook charges a 30 percent commission on all third-party app revenue. And of course, more money is something investors usually like very much.

• On May 29, 2012
  Every company that goes public is subject to a “lock-up period” that typically lasts up to four months after an IPO. During this time, the company’s employees, early investors and founders are not allowed to sell shares of stock they hold in the company. The day a lock-up period ends, a significant amount of new shares can enter the market if those insiders decide to cash out. If demand doesn’t keep up with that boost in supply, share prices can take a hit: LinkedIn’s stock dipped a full seven percent when its lock-up period ended last month.

  Zynga’s lock-up period is 165 days long, ending on May 29, 2012.

• If regulators crack down on Zynga
  Now, this is a big “if.” But there are some people who are concerned about the way that people get “hooked” on Zynga games, and some Wall Street analysts are whispering that it’s only a matter of time before this draws real ire from governmental regulators here in the U.S. and abroad. Just this week, for instance, a woman in Maine was convicted of embezzling 6,000 from her employer to feed her addiction to Zynga games. The larger media loves these kinds of stories, and in the future some politicians may well seek to regulate the industry in the name of “protecting consumers.”

  This may be far-fetched, though: Zynga games are just entertainment, unlike gambling, in which real money flows both in and out. Games such as World of Warcraft have similarly addictive qualities, and they have not come under too much scrutiny, at least from U.S. officials. But Zynga games are arguably more likely to be in the spotlight because they appeal to a more mainstream audience than other online games have in the past. It will be interesting to see how this plays out in the months and years ahead.

In all, Zynga has lots of potential for growth now that it’s got the money and larger respect that comes with being a public company. Its story does not end with this week’s IPO: As interesting as it has been to watch the company over the past few months, the road ahead promises to be even more interesting.

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Of all the announcements from Amazon today, the most audacious one is the one that involves Silk, a hybrid browser that essentially pre-fetches the web, caches it and then serves it up to Fire owners. I was pretty intrigued by it the moment I read about it. It reminded me of Skyfire. However, it was later when reading this post by Chris Espinosa, I realized the implications of it:

…what this means is that Amazon will capture and control every Web transaction performed by Fire users. Every page they see, every link they follow, every click they make, every ad they see is going to be intermediated by one of the largest server farms on the planet. People who cringe at the privacy and data-mining implications of the Facebook Timeline ought to be just floored by the magnitude of Amazon’s opportunity here. Amazon now has what every storefront lusts for: the knowledge of what other stores your customers are shopping in and what prices they’re being offered there.

Woah! That is a pretty big deal. I tried to get more clarification from Amazon’s spokesperson, who emailed me back that “Usage data is collected anonymously and stored in aggregate, thus protecting user privacy” and pointed me to the FAQ page. I still don’t get it, and I am waiting to chat with Amazon (tomorrow) to get further information. I asked David Ulevitch, founder and CEO of OpenDNS, an Internet security and managed DNS service, for his impressions. Here is what he had to say.

I think it’s brilliant. Not sure if people are wary of Amazon doing it since they will see all your traffic but SOMEONE should be doing this. Performance is one reason, but security benefits could be added too. Ultimately I think the idea of decoupled browsing makes a lot of sense. I’d rather a remote exploit run in a VM in the cloud instead of compromising my mobile device and rooting my phone.

But the caveat is that this is Amazon. People hand over all the cards to Google but they feel the exchange of value is worth it. But it took nearly a decade for people to even recognize they were giving something of value to Google. Armed with that savvy that exists now, consumers now know they are giving something to Amazon — so the burden is on Amazon to say how it will use the data or make the benefits so compelling that consumers don’t care just as Google does. It’s worth remembering that Google is open in many areas, but none of their openness is in the areas that matter.

So what do you guys make of Silk? Is the privacy concern for real or overblown? Love to get your thoughts.

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If you’re somebody residing in the rural or maybe mountainous regions of the continent, there exists a high possibility that you have been receiving poor TV reception almost all these years. With the choice of subscribing to either cable TV or Satellite TV, it’s simple to have accessibility to top quality TV reception. Many individuals have opted for Satellite TV and there are actually a number of reasons behind doing this. Cable TV has been in the industry for a while and along with the release of Satellite TV, level of competition is getting stiffer as each and every one vies for a larger share of business. To watch Satellite TV programs, all you’ll have to do is to tune in to the correct Satellite TV frequencies.

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A way to view Satellite TV would be to subscribe to the service through the Satellite TV service provider found in your area. It’s usually a month-to-month subscription that you’ve to spend. What’s more, you have to set up a dish outdoors. With the introduction of Satellite TV for PC, the way it functions is gonna be different. That is, you can now have the ability to view Satellite TV through your own PC directly.

By means of Satellite TV software program, you will get access to a huge number of TV programmes everywhere around the world. The nice thing about it really is that you could watch the TV programs through your own desktop or laptop PC. What this means is the PC can double up as a TV set and you get to have the benefit of your selected programs online in the coziness of your own personal area. There’s no longer any requirement to share the exact same TV set along with the rest of the family.

Watching Satellite TV programs through your own PC is an alternative means of watching Satellite TV. As compared with Satellite TV on your own TV set, Satellite TV for PC is a great deal easier to setup and get going. There is no need for you to setup an outdoors dish or receiver. To view Satellite TV on PC, all you need to arrange is a personal PC together with a fast speed connection to the internet. If you do not plan to go on investing in month-to-month subscriptions to view Satellite TV, then you certainly ought to start thinking about changing to Satellite TV for PC.

To obtain Satellite TV software for your computer, you will need to make a one-time payment. There is no more month-to-month subscription charge that you need to bother about. Just think about the amount of money you can save by doing this! Just for one particular payment, you’re able to have a huge number of channels to pick from and you can watch TV on computer whenever you want. In addition to this particular means of watching TV on PC, lots of people are also evaluating one additional option also known as USB TV Tuner.

Car gear is an incredibly huge industry including an infinite volume of tools and also machines. If you have ever walked right into an automobile store you will rapidly view the volume of devices as well as shop devices that is being used. From lifts to air compressors, a shop is actually slammed stuffed with machinery that is used every day. What this means is a good automobile shop should make sure they buy all of their tools originally from reputable suppliers so that their goods have a full guarantee and so are designed to keep going. The center factor to any kind of automobile shop is often the varieties of lifts that it provides. There are many different varieties of lifts which offer distinct purposes. All electronic devices must be integrated with a DMS.

Some could be driven on to yet others purely lift the automobile up by the frame. Yet another massive facet of automotive lifts is how some tons these are designed to deal with. If you utilize mostly small cars you can buy a smaller sized lift that wont break the bank. If you’re normally lifting quite hefty vehicles you will have to get the right lift that could deal with the particular tonnage.A number of the smaller sized tools necessary in automotive stores include air guns, grease machines, air converters, air lines, device containers, along with the list continues. In case people operate a specialized shop, frequently you will demand equipment that custom make parts.

Equipment that could carry out this kind of services include CNC machines, drill presses, as well as lathes. These items are usually massive, costly, and demand to primarily be bought from a trusted manufacturer. Some of the more simple products for automotive stores contain tools. There tend to be numerous equipment which usually are made mainly for vehicle repair service. It mostly will depend on on what form of shop you manage as to just what form of products you may need.

If you manage a simple fast lube store, right now there are products for you to use that all focus about changing the oil on a automotive as fast as possible.Vehicle shop products is actually a enormous market place. Taking into consideration the majority of new vehicles are mostly operated through its electrical systems, right now there are usually numerous machines offered that diagnose vehicles and browse their particular ecu.

Analysis machines are becoming the most important side in just about any maintenance retailers because of how technical and complex new motor vehicles are produced nowadays. The most important matter to make sure of though is that you are acquiring solutions that are marketed from reliableproviders that offeronly new items that come with a full manufactured guarantee so that your investments are covered. Due to the new technology most electronic equipment should be integrated with the DMS.

People dislike dealing with vehicle salesmen. No-one ever knows what they are hiding. In fact, thank goodness for internet sites like TrueCar and Edmund’s, without which you’d never know what sort of new vehicle pricing was reasonable, right? Before I respond to that question for you, maybe you could answer it for yourself. Does the world work in such a way that you are ever told what anything you purchase a really costs the vendor? From a hot dog on a street hot dog stand to a Sony flatscreen, everything you hear is that one store attempts to beat another on pricing. You would never know how far down things can go, because nobody tells you what the true cost to a dealer is, purchasing the stuff he deals in. Why in the world would internet sites like MSN Automobile or Edmunds do this great thing for you that you see nowhere else in this world? It is straightforward – they aren’t really doing this for you. They simply want you to think that they are.

These internet sites aren’t inexpensive to make and maintain. How do they pay the bills? If you will look a little closer, those internet sites are entirely full of banner ads from the vehicle businesses. Every time a visitor to the web site clicks on one of these banner ads, the web site makes at least $10. They certainly aren’t going to do anything to aggravate their cash cow. What this means is, they can’t ever tell you the truth about how much the vehicle businesses and their dealerships are making. This is not like selling used cars, remember – with used cars, the dealers have more power over their stock of used cars than they do over their stock of new automobiles. What they can and do tell you reliably is how much the sticker retail price is at any given vehicle car lot. They also tell you all about the sales going on at the moment. Which factual information is useful, but not really something that’s very hard to find yourself.

Internet sites like Edmund’s try and sell you on something called the True Market Value on each vehicle. They say that this is your target for the cost you need to work your dealer down to when you go in to purchase a new vehicle. They also say that it’s the average cost paid in the market now. How can the very best cost be the average? An average cost has to be higher than the very best price. The truth is, you could really work the cost down from the target rates which Edmunds gives you.

Your only problem is, nobody tells you how far down you can go. People think that no matter which car lot they go in to, they’ll normally get the same prices quoted. Think again. Different dealers have varying haggling philosophies. New vehicle pricing can often very by hundreds of dollars from car lot to car lot.

Those philosophies can vary from month to month. A dealer with an incredibly low price to pay can have an incredibly high price tomorrow. Information is your best ally when you go in to purchase a new vehicle. Even if the dealer smiles at you, he’s not really on your side.