It's a light posting week here on R/WW - but for those of you not out enjoying the xmas/new year break, here is a list of Read/WriteWeb's most popular posts in 2006. This is according to our server logs.

But honestly, you really should be reading a good book instead of blogs at this time of year ;-) I know I am!

10. Netscape Community Backlash; 1 July

When Netscape.com got re-branded into a Digg-style community news site, there was a lot of backlash within the Netscape community about it. This post tracked the upheaval - it was the most commented post on R/WW this year, with over 200 mostly negative comments before we closed it off.

9. 2007 Web Predictions; 19 December

The R/WW team pondered what web technology trends will be important over 2007.

8. List of Web 2.0 Lists; 5 May

A list of all the main web 2.0 lists - and other helpful web product data.

7. Yahoo! Mail Beta Release - Exclusive Podcast With Ethan Diamond; 13 September

In September Yahoo released the new Ajax-powered version of Yahoo Mail to all users in the US and across 18 international markets. We spoke exclusively to Ethan Diamond, director of product management for the new Yahoo! Mail.

6. New-look Google Reader Is Stunning!; 28 September

Late September Google Reader, Google's web-based RSS Aggregator, had a re-design which impressed R/WW's editor. With a look n' feel very much like Gmail, we believe it is a pointer to Google Reader being prepped for mainstream promotion - and/or merged with Gmail. Probably a bit of both, as a standalone RSS Reader is always going to be needed.

5. Exclusive: New Yahoo! homepage; 15 May

In May the world's most visited webpage, Yahoo.com, had a major re-design and Read/WriteWeb had the inside story. As well as the first in-depth look at the new yahoo.com, we had an exclusive podcast interview with Yahoo! Chief Product Officer Ash Patel and Vice President of Front Doors Tapan Bhat.

4. Firefox 2.0 Review; 17 October

Alex Iskold described Firefox 2.0 as "a solid release", noting that "the team's focus on performance, stability, usablity and security clearly results in a better, faster product - and users will be pleased with that."

3. Search 2.0 vs Traditional Search; 20 July

Ebrahim Ezzy's influential post defined search 2.0 as search technologies "designed to combine the scalability of existing internet search engines with new and improved relevancy models; they bring into the equation user preferences, collaboration, collective intelligence, a rich user experience, and many other specialized capabilities that make information more productive."

2. Top 10 Firefox Web 2.0 Add-ons; 29 August

Alex Iskold and I reviewed the best Firefox add-ons for Firefox 2.0. Firefox was consistently the most used browser for R/WW readers this year, ending the year at around 60% browser share for this site.

1. GoogleOS: What To Expect; 21 November

Emre Sokullu's number 1 smash hit not only became the biggest post of the year on Read/WriteWeb, but had us accused of smoking crack and all manner of other insults :-) But with over 100 comments, this post definitely stirred up a great discussion and deserved to be number 1 for 2006. Note: one of the comments was from my non-techie father, who normally does not comment on R/WW - but on this occasion he felt compelled to interrupt the Google navel-gazing with a Beatles joke.

So another great year on Read/WriteWeb - and you can see from this list of top posts how big a contribution the extended R/WW writing team made. Thanks Alex, Emre, Ebrahim, John, Rudy, and all the other super-smart guest writers R/WW has had over 2006. Here's looking to an even better 2007!