by Sylvia Leatham, Friday, December 29 2006 
 
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.

The blogging boom continued unabated in 2006, with a November survey from blog tracker Technorati revealing 100,000 new online journals are created every day, with 1.3 million posts blogged daily. Research firm Gartner predicted blogging will reach its zenith during the first half of 2007, however the number of active blogs will then level out at around 100 million. The research house noted that over 200 million individuals have already given up on the activity. Blogging continued to converge with mainstream media this year, as newspapers and journalists maintained the popularity of their own blogs, some bloggers were invited to cross over to join news organisations and Scoopt Words launched a service whereby bloggers can get paid for the use of their content by news editors. More businesses began to understand the benefits of using blogs as well, seeing the medium as a new way to communicate with customers, raise their firms’ profile and keep their websites looking fresh. Meanwhile, US Congressional election candidates were scrutinised just as much in the blogosphere as in the regular press, while here at home the Labour Party hired blogging expert Zack Exley to work on its election campaign. ENN also dipped its toes further into the blogosphere this year, with the launch of Damien Mulley‘s regular round-up of tech blogs.

OSA Editorial Comments:

What a great article please go and read more of the Year in Review 2006: Top ten tech trends.

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