For the week of December 26, 2005

The countdown to 2006 began early as bloggers spent the week making lists, patting backs, and predicting the future. Looking back, Signal vs. Noise points to the F-List by FlavorPill as one of the best collections of cool and interesting cultural happenings that didn’t get attention elsewhere, including the best blogs. The 2005 Artypapers Awards has a roundup of the best blogs, people and sites that capture why this year feels so different. Marc’s Voice has a list of some of the best year-end lists including links to the top Web 2.0 software of 2005, the year in tags, and the sexiest geeks of 2005. And BlogPulse scoured an entire year of blog posts, links, and trends to summarize the year in blogging including the top posts, top stories and top images of 2005.

Read/Write Web hands out surprising Best Web BigCo and Best Web LittleCo awards along with a year of weekly Web 2.0 wrapups; Digg points out CNET News.com’s 10 Worst Products of 2005; Fast Company collects the Top Creative Minds of 2005 including Ashoka’s remarkable Bill Drayton and Malcolm Gladwell’s overexposed hair. Don’t miss the hilarious 2005 Foot in Mouth Awards from Wired (thanks to Boing Boing for the find) for bits like Brit Hume interviewing President Bush about his iPod and Microsoft’s Ballmer saying: “I’m going to f***ing kill Google.”

The war in Iraq, Hurricane Katrina, and the future of the Supreme Court were all big news in 2005 on Slate, but the most popular stories were about dogs, beer, celebrities, and naked ladies. Other disclosures: Britney Spears was the most searched term on Yahoo in 2005, but Pamela Anderson is the most searched person, place or thing in the past 10 years; Mercedes Benz was the most rapped-about brand of 2005, with Nike becoming cool again in second place, Ad Age reports;  Donald Trump and penis patches were the most popular spam ads this year, eclipsing porn for the first time in history; and Motley Fool has 3 stocks that blew the market away this year.

In politics, left-ish Bob Burnett rounded up the top news stories of the year at Huffington Post (Bush’s and Republicans’ woes, the Iraq war, natural disasters) while Hit and Run captions the libertarian Reason Foundation’s Top 10 Headlines from 2005 to Remember (medical pot, Katrina’s cost, the pension crisis) and Newsweek’s Eleanor Clift showcased the year’s top political lies ranging from “we do not torture” to “the insurgency is in its last throes.”

What’s ahead for 2006? Trendwatchers foretell argyle sweaters and Superman will be hot again plus the iPod will remain the must-have gadget. Ray Ozzie’s leaked memo lays out what’s next for Microsoft. Scobleizer writes about the prediction business going hot and heavy while Scripting News forsees Scoble on Oprah. It will be the year of the personal video thanks to the video iPod says Om Malik and look for a new video blog or vlog soon from New Media Musings. A VC starts with the del.icio.us predictions tag and then works up his own list here.

That’s it for '05. Happy New Year from all of us at Rojo and see you in 2006!