The holiday season marks the end of 2011.

So how does Bing end the year with a bang? They release their 2011 top search results, highlighting top celebrities, events (weddings, divorces and babies) electronics and more.

What were Canadians talking about in 2011?

The Royal Wedding, Kim Kardashian’s fairytale wedding, followed by her divorce (72 days later), Beyonce’s baby bump, and hockey. The most searched celebrity of 2011 in Canada? Kim Kardashian of course, but Canadian celebrity Justin Bieber took top spot with our neighbours to the south — Americans had a high case of Bieber Fever!

That’s not all that they did.

Bing ensured 2011 was a year that would never be forgotten with an infographic designed by High Road to tell the complete story of 2011.

Check it out:

How do you take the stress out of holiday shopping and put the joy back in?

It’s actually quite simple. On behalf of Bing, the High Road team conducted a survey to see how Canadians were feeling about decision making and the holiday season. The results showed that Canadians  found it difficult to make decisions about gift buying – 40 per cent thought it would be easier if there weren’t so many options.

With Canadians stressed out about a festive time, the Bing team was ready to put the happy back in Happy Holidays!

We brought on personal shopper Afiya Francisco from thestylehouse.ca to share her secrets to gift buying and how she makes confident decisions about her purchases. The answer: Bing Shopping. Afiya did a media tour in Toronto to spread the word that Bing is the tool for holiday shopping.

In her words,  it’s simple, accessible and a personal shopper’s assistant! Afiya spoke about the survey results and the benefits of Bing Shopping, such as Daily Deals, price comparisons and cross border promotions, for doing your research before purchasing.

Watch below to learn how you can enjoy the holiday season, decision making and gift buying!

For patients living with Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD), meeting dietary requirements can be tough. CKD patients experience a slow loss of kidney function over time, and since the main function of the kidneys is to remove waste and excess water from the body, a healthy, balanced, and highly-personalized diet is very important.

This is why the Kidney Foundation of Canada teamed up with High Road to create a web-based dietary resource to make patients’ lives just a little bit easier – and in November 2011, the organization unveiled The Kidney Community Kitchen: a dietitian-approved resource to help patients manage their eating, as well as help their friends and family who support them every day.

www.kidneycommunitykitchen.ca

To achieve this, HRC worked with the Kidney Foundation to host a focus group with several kidney patients, supporters, and dietitians and plot the course for the creation of a powerful new resource.

CKD patients didn’t just need another cookbook: they wanted a useful, easy-to-use and tailored experience to make their lives easier.

The new website includes:

• The cookbook: Easy-to-use, dietitian-approved recipes with info that is vital to patients such as sodium and phosphorus intake tracking, renal diet exchange information, and ingredient substitution options. Those that visit the website can also comment and rate recipes and website members can save their favourites for later reference.

• The meal planner: Allows users of any experience level to drag-and-drop recipes from the cookbook to build a weekly meal plan that is easily printed and/or shared electronically with friends, family, or their dietitian. Users can also view and print a weekly grocery list for each recipe or for their entire meal plan.

• The food journal: Automatically archives a user’s weekly meal plans, allowing them to review historically, as well as add comments about how they felt that day, how they felt about certain recipes, and track their health information.

• CKD resources: Helping users better understand and manage their health. This is also a great resource for parents, providing things like downloadable “dietary dos and don’ts” which can make sleepovers and other social engagements safer and much more fun.

Congratulations to the Kidney Foundation on this great new project!