There are many ways to describe the annual Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, such as: vast, tiring, over the top, technophilic, illuminating, geeky, and productive. One more to add to the list is "social." Now that this year's gadget fest has wrapped, it's time to follow up on last year's roundup and check out the social side of CES 2011.

Now that the oohing and ahhing is over concerning Facebook raising a cool $450 million from Goldman Sachs (and, just for fun, another $50 million from long-time investor Digital Sky Technologies), the rumination has begun. And much of it has had to do not with the business of Facebook itself, but with whether there's something somehow nefarious about the social network's decision not to go public, at least at this time.

The end-of-year holidays offer a perennial reminder that no matter how hard you try, you can never escape your family. My own family often inspires columns here, sometimes directly as in 2005's "Google vs. Grandmom," and sometimes through more convoluted paths. They don't always get credit here, nor do they necessarily seek it, but each of my relatives has his or her own approach to social media. Meet the extended Berkowitz family:

After writing 44 Social Media Insider columns this year, this 320th contribution to MediaPost offers a good time to reflect on what happened in 2010. Several themes emerged, with mobile social media standing out among all the rest. Here's the year in review.

As we head into the Christmas holiday, it's time for wish lists. Here's a theme-based one for people in social media: If Santa were to give you the gift of a perfect social network, what features would it contain? (And, yes, Virginia, this exercise assumes that Facebook -- for all of its world dominance -- still isn't perfect.)

For nine days, I was silent. The world heard not a tweet, not a Facebook post, not an email from me. This is the story of one man who went to four South American countries with nothing but an iPhone, two digital cameras, a Kindle, and a couple suitcases, and survived without social media in even the darkest of times, like when I really could have used restaurant recommendations.

And the winner is Mark Zuckerberg, in a walk! Of course, I'm talking about the naming of our beloved Facebook founder (after all, without him, many of us would not have found our business calling) as TIME's Person of the Year. And it really was a walk. Zuckerberg was apparently up against Hamid Karzai, Julian Assange, the Chilean Miners and the Tea Party, none of which have had the global impact this year of Zuckerberg, whose invention now has over 500 million members.

Hmmm. The people I hang with on Twitter are so out there. And here I thought I was part of the Twitter mainstream. Last night, I did my own rough survey of what my Twitter-verse (or at least those I follow), looks like -- and it in no way resembles what the well-regarded Pew Internet and American Life Project found when it looked at who in America is using Twitter.

No one ever reads, or comments on, my columns to do with Myspace. But, since hope springs eternal, let me try again. Here's a thought: What if Google bought Myspace?See? Throw Google into the sentence and everything starts to change! I put Google in the mix not just because it's a craven ploy to get you to read this column, but because the idea of it's buying Myspace was actually floated by Gawker, after News Corp. COO Chase Carey 'fessed up at the Reuters Global Media Summit that Myspace was on the block.

Ever wonder what Barbie could teach you about social media? Maybe you haven't, but Barbie got an upgrade lately in the form of a video camera built into her necklace. In her latest incarnation, Barbie Video Girl can give a few clues as to where social media is heading.