Web 2.0 dominates this year’s list of the most notable tech trends.

It’s the time of year for reflection, and ENN has compiled its annual list of noteworthy tech themes. (The list omits commentary on the mobile and telecoms sectors; keep an eye out for analysis of these markets elsewhere on the site over Christmas.)

TIME magazine was also in a reflective mood this year, sticking a mirror on the front cover of its “Person of the Year” issue to acknowledge the pervasive influence of Web 2.0 — or user-generated internet content as it’s also known — such as blogs, social networking and video-sharing sites. We take a look at these and other stories that dominated the tech news headlines in 2006.

In 2006, geek culture went mainstream, for better or for worse.

Video-game consoles became front-page news, Internet video clips affected politics and big business, millions of people joined social-networking sites and bought flat-screen TVs — and everyone feared hackers and online identity thieves.

Networking and expression — that sums up most of the activity that’s done on the internet today. It’s no more just an information powerhouse. And if the increasing number of social networking sites marks the former, the growing number of blogs across the webspace confirms the latter. Blogs, which till a couple of years ago were assumed to be something meant only for the geeks, have now become mainstream. And social networking sites like MySpace, YouTube and Facebook have been the outstanding success stories of 2006. Why else would Google buy YouTube for $1.65 billion?

In fact, one high point of internet in 2006 has been the rise of social networking sites. There was a strong growth in existing web 2.0 networks like Flickr and del.icio.us. Google’s Orkut too is a hot favourite among youngsters: Over 100,000 users within 48 hours of launch, while MySpace has over 125,000,000 users. It’s so, so hot that we now have close to a dozen social networking sites focused on India: yaari.com, minglebox.com, zhoom.com, DesiMartini.com and humsubka.com, to name a few.

HUNTINGTON — There seems to be a new type of identity theft, where a person’s name is borrowed and placed with derogatory pictures and comments on personality profile Web sites like MySpace.

I’m Bob Doughty. Two thousand six is almost over. On this special show, Shirley Griffith and I look back at some trends from the past year.