Another year gone and now is the time to commemorate the most popular brands of 2011. Research firm Nielsen has released its "Tops
of 2011" lists and the top spots are occupied by familiar names such as Google, Facebook and Apple. Google has topped the 'Top 10 US Web Brands' lists, followed by Facebook. Surprisingly, the third spot goes to Yahoo, the struggling web behemoth. MSN and YouTube occupy fourth and fifth spots respectively. While Microsoft and Apple in top 10 list does surprise us. Other occupants of the list, AOL Media Network and Ask Search Network, are a bit puzzling. Wikipedia occupied eighth spot.
Facebook held the top spot in 'Top 10 US Social Networks & Blogs' list. Twitter has been placed third, while Blogger is sandwiched between these two. Social networking site of yore, Myspace.com, also managed to make it to top 5, while LinkdeIn has been placed sixth. Google+ holds eighth position.
The 'Top 5 Smartphone Manufacturers' list also contains usual suspects. The top honor goes to Apple, with e9 percent market share, while HTC, with e1 percent share of the pie occupied second spot. RIM BlackBerry, despite its recent setbacks, came third, with 17 percent market share. Samsung and Motorola, filled fourth and fifth spot with 11 percent market share each.