Can't get enough year-end roundups? Hardly, I'm sure. But since I was curious I figured I might as well share what I discovered when I looked up the most popular posts on this blog from 2007. Here you go -- and Happy New Year!

1. NW newspapers sites among nation's best
2. Tough guys blog, too
3. Who has the best web site for making prints?
4. Top Web sites for Pierce County users
5. Engaging in social media at PRSA meeting
6. Technolust hits home: I love my iPhone
7. A look at Library 2.0, local edition
8. Come blog with us
9. Now that Tacoma has banned panhandling, could it work in Seattle?
10. Can a newspaper web site be TOO edgy?

What did you read on our web site last year? Crime, sports and a couple oddities - the usual mix of Internet news.

Our most popular story of the year, about three Fircrest families who receive death threats via cell phone, was viewed more than 160,000 times making it the most-viewed story in the web site's history (at least as far as I can tell). That's more page views than our entire site receives on a slow day. It benefited from the same linking from other sites that drive a lot of traffic to our sports coverage (which I wrote about previously).

One particular oddity this year is that almost half the stories were published in June (Nos. 1, 3, 6, 8 and 11). Not sure how to explain that.

Here are the most popular stories from 2007:

1. A horror movie comes to life
2. Death stuns school
3. Pressure's on Portland
4. Student dies in shooting at Foss High School, suspect captured
5. Seahawks intend to shop Jackson
6. Stuckey's stock rising
7. Bombing at Iraqi parliament kills 8
8. Dressed up dead fawn left near theater
9. Ridnour trade talk emerging
10. Airline employee from Lakewood arrested after flight from Seattle

The No. 11 story from 2007 is a candidate for the Darwin award, too: Nude driver cited for drinking and 'embracing' while driving

In January we'll be launching a couple more of our student adventure blogs and are looking for more. If you know any students from the South Sound who are studying abroad in 2008, ask them to contact me.

Here are links to our previous student-abroad blogs:
• Andrew and Jake McCaffery's Journey of Hope
• Sojourn to Norway
• Tacoma Girl in Paris
• Chile Journal
• Costa Rican Journal
• Italy Journal
• Australian Journal

Thanks to the interactive nature of the web, some news stories actually get better after a few days. (Kind of like a good spaghetti sauce that is simmered low and slow.)

Case in point: Sunday's story by Dan Voelpel on the future of the Russell Co. and the possibility that it may leave Tacoma one day. By Monday there was already some lively discussion on the story's comments page and on other local blogs, most notably Exit 133.

Here's an example:

If Russell leaves Tacoma you might as well roll up the sidewalks and forget about any meaningful development in the downtown area. Hopefully Tacoma city fathers/mothers won't let this happen like with Boeing & Weyerhauser. Tacoma needs to pull out all the stops for development and keep this company in Tacoma.

For a news organization, it's much easier to know which stories really resonate with an audience now. If a story gets good traffic online and generates discussion, either on the news site or on other local blogs, then you know you're onto something that many other people care about or find interesting. Reporters and editors still get phone calls and emails, of course, but other readers don't get the benefit of "listening in" on those comments.

No, it's not perfect. The quality of the comments varies. Conservative-liberal political name-calling seems to seep in everywhere. But news that is a conversation instead of a lecture is better for everyone.

UPDATE: Peter Callaghan just pointed out a story on the San Francisco Chronicle's site right now about a tiger fatally mauling a zookeeper. The story has 766 comments now, and it was just posted this morning. I'm not sure who actually reads all those comments, but it clearly is a feature that news consumers enjoy.

It's Christmas Eve so I thought it would be fitting to feature a nifty online resource to help you answer the question on every kid's mind today: where is Santa Claus?

Using the NORAD Tracks Santa site, you can view a Google map to see where Santa has already visited and then view YouTube reports from NORAD officials on Santa sightings. The map is updated every 5 minutes so you'll always know where Santa visited last.

What do you suppose is in Santa's bag? I'm guessing there's a Wii or two in there.

According to this news article, NORAD (North American Aerospace Defense Command) has mobilized a record 1,000 volunteers to field thousands of calls and e-mails from children eager to pinpoint Santa's current position.

Merry Christmas, everyone!

When the folks who cover education here at the TNT pitched an idea for high schoolers to blog on our site, I thought, "Sure, let's try it." When they pitched the name "High School Confidential," I thought, "We'll never get a teenager to post something confidential on a mainstream newspaper blog." I was wrong.

In the past couple weeks, volunteer high school bloggers have taken on weighty issues like teen sex and pregnancy and suicide. So the blog has accomplished, at least for now, its goal of providing a visit to the virtual hallways of our local high schools, a glimpse into the local lives that high schoolers are leading.

Quotes from the blog:

My best friend just tried to kill herself. I don’t know what possessed her to do it. There are true demons in this world that drive us insane, trying to make us harm ourselves. I don’t know what I’d do without her. She is, after all, my best friend.

Sex has become a trend. Forget those tight flare bottom jeans that every girl should have or the latest shoe a boy should rock, sporting a belly with the promise of a baby soon to come is the newest fad.

The first time I met another person off the Internet, I was 13-years-old claiming to be 18. Being only 13, I was innocent in the romantic sense, and my stomach was in knots from the thought of his expectations.

Link: http://hsconfidential.blogspot.com/

It's been months overdue, but I have finally made time to update the list of local blogs on our main blogs page. (Thanks to those of you who sent emails with suggestions on the links to include.)

On the left you will now find more links to the great local blogs we have in the South Sound. In the middle are links and descriptions of the ever-growing list TNT blogs.

It's amazing to me how quickly both lists have expanded. When we first created the page a couple years ago, there were about a half-dozen each. Now there are more than 20 on each list. (And if you know one that we missed, let me know.)

So here's the question: how many blogs will there be on both lists two years from now? Will the number quadruple again, or just double? Or is this the peak of popularity for blogs and in two years we'll all be doing something new like Twitter from our phones?

Erik Bjornson is a Tacoma lawyer and the writer behind the Tacoma Urbanist blog. It's an interesting mix of insight, and it's hosted at FeedTacoma. I particularly enjoyed his recent reviews of several local coffee joints and their preparation of a particular cappuccino.

I asked Erik via email a little about the blog to share here:

OSS: What compelled you to start a blog?

EB: I wanted to start a blog that would focus on urban design issues in downtown Tacoma.

Right now, Tacoma residents have been pretty (justifiably) reactionary when faced with bad designs such as blank walls being constructed or surface level parking lots where there should be buildings.

There is an emerging desire to have Tacoma be developed better and it often takes some analysis to determine what works and what doesn't. Unfortunately, there are no special interest groups in the city who advocate better urban design. Most groups are simply concerned about one or two projects going through.

OSS: What do you like most / least about having a blog?

EB: It allows some quicker response to some issues that arise in Tacoma. I have written a number of opinion pieces for the various newspapers in Tacoma. A blog allows a quicker exchange of information. However, each has its place. Sometimes a thorough analysis is better.

OSS: Tacoma is fortunate to have several good blogs. What kind of blog do you think is missing from the mix?

EB: I believe Feed Tacoma now has a 32 blogs "feeding" into it as well as the TNT blogs. There is alot of territory covered with a number of different categories. People write what they care about. If there was one blog I would add it could be comprised of independent professional designers and architects who would analyze different issues the city is facing and render their opinion. There are certainly professionals who post on blogs but none that I know of you have their own blog. Perhaps this is because blogging can take up alot of time.

If you aren't in the market for a Nintendo Wii this holiday season, be thankful. If you are in the market for one, I feel your pain.

Somehow, in this information age, it is still possible to want a commercial product but not be able to buy one. If you go into a local store to ask for one, the clerk will look at you as if you just asked to buy the current model of the space shuttle.

I thought, "that's OK, I'll just turn to my friend the web." Surely you can pick one up on Nintendo's site or Amazon or somewhere. It's not like the internet can be sold out of something, right?

Wrong. Unless you're willing to pay a couple hundred dollars extra, the Internet is sold out of the Wii. Sigh.

I'm not sure if this shortage is intentional by Nintendo to create extra buzz or a miscalculation of production capacity, but it's remarkable to me that so many people (I know half a dozen) want a product but have to go to some extreme extra effort to buy one. That's just, well, un-American.

UPDATE: Thanks to my mother-in-law, I have a Wii! She was shopping at Circuit City on Sunday and asked the sales clerk if they, by chance, had any left. They did, and my mother-in-law jumped on one, so I was able to achieve my goal of getting a Wii without standing in line for hours on a dark, early morning.

It's sports and crime - even more than usual. Of note is the No. 9 story which was a News Update at 7:15 a.m. that was a 6-paragraph brief on B2 (with a photo) in the next day's newspaper.

TOP SECTIONS

1. Homepage
2. Blogs
3. Local News
4. Sports
5. News Updates
6. Prep sports
7. Seahawks
8. Business
9. Crime
10. News
11. Soundlife
12. Letters

TOP 10 STORIES

No.    Headline - writer (comments)
1       Wish list targeting M's Ibanez  -  LaRue 
2       Murder charges in shootings (36)  -  Lynn/Mulick 
3       Is Shaun Alexander running out of time?  -  Hughes
4       Horror movie come to life (69)  -  Robinson 
5       Arrests made in slayings (26)  -  Mulick 
6       M's all ears regarding Sexson  -  LaRue 
7       A BCS prayer: Oh Lord, please block LSU's path  - McGrath
8       With bonus loss, sun could set on Willingham (3) - McGrath
9       Police standoff ends at Southeast 19th (4)  -  Mulick 
10       Hackett out with injury, practice gets harder  -  Beene 

TOP 10 BLOGS
 
1. Seahawks Insider
2. Lights & Sirens
3. Prep Blog
4. Ed's Diner
5. Huskies Insider
6. Political Buzz
7. Sonics Insider
8. Bring the Noise
9. Biz Buzz
10. Inside the Editorial Page
 
TOP 5 VIDEOS
1. Atlas explosion (security video)
2. Auburn's Veterans Day Parade
3. Explosion rocks Atlas Foundary
4. Port land dispute
5. Mount Rainier one year after flood

TOP 5 PHOTO GALLERIES
1. A soldier's recovery
2. Auburn's Veterans Day Parade
3. No. 1 Lakes falls
4. Outdoor retailer opens doors
5. Crystal Mountain chairlift goes in

That is the question being posed by an article at Crosscut this morning. The writer states that "no other city in Washington has jumped into bed with Tacoma on this one" but seems generally impressed with the results of Tacoma's crackdown.

If you wanted to make it to Thursday's conference but weren't able to, you can now watch video footage from the sessions, thanks to Kevin Freitas and FeedTacoma.

Link: www.feedtacoma.com/videos/SSTC-2007/