Exploring the Yahoo! homepage just got a lot more fun. To kick off the new year, the Brand Marketing team is rolling out a series of Y! Bang animations that will appear on the homepage, periodically replacing Yahoo!’s familiar purple logo. Along with reflecting the lively energy of the brand, the animations will be timed to celebrate notable occasions and raise awareness for meaningful causes.

“Among other things, the Yahoo! brand is fun, and these animations are a representation of that,” says Connor Smith, Brand Marketing Associate in the Global Brand Marketing team.

Connor and the Brand team plan to develop close to 40 animated designs for 2012. The current animation is for Chinese New Year. In this animation a rabbit hops into the scene, pauses, and then bolts out as a dragon walks in.

“The animation is a tongue and cheek reference to the Chinese zodiac- 2011 is the year of the rabbit, and 2012 is the year of the dragon” explains Connor.

Clicking on the animation will bring you to a relevant Yahoo! page, providing a deeper user experience, whether it be more fun or more facts. The Chinese New Year animation will link to a page on Chinese astrology within Shine’s horoscope section. Some of the more cause-related animations, such as the breast-cancer awareness and World Aids Day designs, will provide additional Yahoo!-generated information on the issues.

Click here to view the Chinese New Year logo which appear on Yahoo! from midnight to midnight on January 23rd. Stay tuned for the next animation – this time for the Superbowl -- on the Yahoo! homepage.

What moment in 2011 stands out in your mind? The space shuttle launching into space one final time? An earthquake and tsunami that, in a matter of minutes, devastated a country? A royal wedding destined to be talked about for decades? As we wrap up the year, Flickr has pulled together a Year in Photos 2011 Gallery that covers several of the moving, emotionally charged, and surprising images that captivated us this year. Some of these images were captured using the most sophisticated digital cameras to date, while others were taken using the latest smartphones. Regardless, each photo captures a moment perfectly. Of course, this wouldn’t be possible without the help of our Flickr community, who helped us reach new heights in 2011, including more than 6 billion photos now stored on Flickr and more than 200 million images now available through our Creative Commons  service. Many thanks to all of the Flickr members who provided photos for this collection, and here’s to 2012 and capturing even more memorable moments.

See the Year in Photos 2011 on Flickr.

Yahoo!’s EVP of the Americas named one of world’s leading media strategists 

Just twelve months after joining Yahoo! as the Executive Vice President of the Americas region, Ross Levinsohn has been recognized by Ad Age as a 2011 Media Maven. The annual Media Mavens awards fete the world's leading media strategists for their creative thinking, leadership and innovation. At an event in New York today honoring the award winners, Levinsohn was in very good company with honorees from brands like Apple, P&G and Warner Bros.

During his year-long tenure, Levinsohn has created a strong track record for championing unique content experiences and new partnerships that benefit Yahoo!’s consumers and advertisers. He’s committed to pushing the boundaries and ensuring Yahoo!’s continued leadership position as the premiere digital media company. Here’s a look back at some of the company’s key accomplishments under Levinsohn: 

• Yahoo! remains the top-ranked site in an amazing 13 U.S. categories, including sports, mail, news, finance, entertainment-news, shopping, TV, real estate, autos, instant messaging, and photos. 

• The Royal Wedding was the largest video event in Yahoo!’s history, surpassing the funeral of pop star Michael Jackson by 21 percent, and totaling 27 million video streams and 2.6 million live video streams over the 24-hour period from Friday to Saturday. 

• The death of Osama bin Laden marked new traffic records on Yahoo! News, surpassed only by March’s earthquake in Japan. More than 45 million pages on Yahoo! were viewed about bin Laden’s death those two days—more page views than these Websites got for the entire month: NPR, Salon, TechCrunch, The Atlantic, or Google Reader. 

• Yahoo! had all the top 10 original shows on the Web in August. Calling Yahoo! "the broadcast network of the digital age," Yahoo! Media Network senior VP Mickie Rosen announced a slate of eight new video series aimed at the 13 million women who watch Yahoo! video.

• To commemorate the 10th anniversary of 9/11, Yahoo! partnered with National September 11 Memorial & Museum (9/11 Memorial) and co-produced a memorial microsite which included tools for users to tell their own stories.

• Yahoo! and ABC announce a new partnership that will bring both consumers and advertisers a treasure trove of premium video content.
• Yahoo! is named the official, and only broadcast destination for “A Decade of Difference” –a concert celebrating the philanthropic work of President Clinton and The William J. Clinton Foundation, featuring an all-star group of the most influential and socially responsible artists, including Bono and Lady Gaga. Yahoo!’s Decade of Difference microsite received more than 200 million page views. 
•Yahoo! announced a partnership with Microsoft and AOL to offer each other’s premium non-reserved online display inventory to their respective advertising customers. 
• Yahoo! was the official live-streaming partner of the premier of “Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 1”, churning out wall-to-wall coverage of the scene at L.A. Live’s Nokia Theater, including star arrivals and fan reaction. The live stream was syndicated internationally, ensuring that fans all over the world could get a glimpse of the event. An exclusive “Breaking Dawn” trailer on Yahoo! shattered records with 2.9 million streams in a single day.

In an interview earlier this fall, Levinsohn told Ad Age, "I don't want to look back and say, 'Gosh, we had a chance to be innovative and bold, but we just felt comfortable and scared to do something different.'"Today’s award and the list of accomplishments above indicate he doesn’t need to worry about that.