The year has come to a close, and 2008 will go down as a great year, especially if you enjoy financial crises. But it was a fine year for the World Wide Web. I’m sure you don’t care, but I’m going to name a few of my favorite things from the web in 2008.

Favorite News Site: Memeorandum. This was my personal favorite throughout the Presidential campaign. Set up exactly like TechMeme, it displayed the most blogged stories that often not widely covered by the mainstream news networks. I was down.
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Well, there’s really nothing funny about Joseph Stalin. He was a brutal dictator who was responsible for the death of tens of millions.

But in Russia, he’s still pretty popular–even rated the third greatest Russian of all time in a recent poll where over 4 million Russians took part. Perhaps Putin’s iron grip over the country has made Russians nostalgic for ol’ Stalin.

Now it appears that industrious Russians are taking advantage of the affinity for Stalin by releasing Nokia phones that have images of Joseph Stalin theme them. That’s right: a Stalin theme.

Below the fold: pictures!
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I like to tool around on Digg a lot, and the quality of the articles that get Dugg up is usually pretty good. I haven’t been part of the community long enough to know if it used to be better, but I usually have a good time when I’m on there, and I honestly find the layout for Reddit to be rudimentary at best. So I’m pretty loyal to Digg.

But Digg has a serious problem. Ever since they added friends lists, users with the most friends can automatically get their submissions put on the front page of Digg because their friends automatically Digg up the hell out of any submission they put up. If MrBabyMan, msaleem, or Maki Maki put a 404 page up, it would be Dugg up. It’s ridiculous.
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I got an iPod Touch for Christmas, and immediately starting having some fun on the app store. I purchased Tetris and Real Soccer 2009. RS 2009 is great and Tetris is okay.

But the biggest question: would I plunk down the $.99 for iFart, the gold standard of app store farting apps?

There are a couple of free farting apps, but they aren’t very good. Whoopie Cushion and Mr. Poot offer only a few weak, poor farts, though they are free. Hell, I had an iTunes gift card: so I bought iFart.
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Facebook’s release of a Spanish language version in Feburary is leading to a massive increase in membership throughout South America.

In Chile alone, Facebook has increased its user base by nearly 4000% in 2008. The number is well over 2000% in Argentina, and figures like these are common throughout the region.

What does this mean for Facebook? It means they need to get into gear throughout Asia ASAP. They have seen the success of their Spanish language version. Now is the time to take on China, India, Korea, and Japan. Doing this will be quite different, as these countries already have a higher penetration of other social networking sites.
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My girlfriend has the T-Mobile/Google G1, and after a few months using it, it’s obvious there is something very screwed up about the battery life. The thing dies all the time on her.

But T-Mobile is working on a solution to this, as they may shipping all G1 users new and improved batteries soon.

That said: a small improvement in battery life isn’t going to do very much. This will work best as a free backup battery solution to frustrated G1 users.
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Having not been an iPhone user, getting the iPod touch 32GB for Christmas was a serious exposure to what the iPhone can offer.

The question almost has to be asked: is the iPod Touch merely a toned-down iPhone, sold without a contract, at higher hardware fees?
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I was cruising Google Hot Trends, looking for what people are looking for on the search engine on Christmas eve, and Santa is a very popular subject. Searches for Santa trackers, like Norad’s Santa tracker, are very popular.

But ranking 90th as I write this is the search, “is Santa real?” Isn’t it heartbreaking? I’m hoping a lot of these searches are made by parents asking about how to explain Santa to their children. But Google’s related searches include “is santa real or fake” or “is santa real yes or no.”
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There was a cool article by Adam Ostrow in Mashable today about how NBA stars are using social media to establish their brands and get NBA All-Star votes. While Toronto Raptors power forward Chris Bosh has the gold standard in social media sites and exposure, Phoenix Suns PF Amare Stoudamire is giving him a run for his money.

So far, Stoudamire can’t hold a candle to the often hilarious and copious material Bosh has up on his site and on YouTube, AOL, Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter. He’s got tons of material on YouTube and his site is well updated.
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I am the last tech geek on Earth without an iPhone. I bought the Nokia E71 this summer after the iPhone 3G came out and the Internets were littered with complaints about Apple’s new marvel. I don’t regret buying the E71 one bit, however. Opera Mini is by far my favorite mobile web browser on the market, the phone is an email dynamo, and the battery life and call quality are superior.

But the iPhone is the coolest thing in the world. I know it is. I’m not a hater. It even has e-books, and now ScrollMotion has released a very attractive e-reader app that takes iPhone ebooks to a whole new level. Some new titles are also being released. But will the iPhone ever be a viable e-reader?
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