Before 2009 came to a close, Google provided a look (as always) at the most searched for terms of the year. It showed the top ten fastest rising and fastest falling terms on both a global scale, and in the U.S. Globally, "Michael Jackson" was the fastest rising, while "Beijing 2008" was the fastest falling. In the U.S., "Twitter" was the fastest rising (just above "Michael Jackson", and "John McCain" was the fastest falling (just over the Olympics).

Just as we did at the end of 2008, we have gone back through our entire archive for the year 2009 and picked out the articles that received the most conversation from our readers. As we approach the new year, we thought it would be fun to go back and reflect on some of the things that got people talking in the one that’s wrapping up.

As we did last year, we have gone back through our archives and picked out some of the most noteworthy social media items we have covered since 2009 began. Now that 2009 is almost over, it was worth going  back and seeing what all has happened.

If you come across missing items, please feel free to share them in the comments.

Now that Twitter employs a Chief Scientist, we will benefit from the ongoing interpretation and publishing of Twitter behavior and activity to better understand how Twitter is constantly evolving.

In keeping with the theme of reflecting upon the year 2009, we thought it would be fun to go back through our video archive and find the ones that were the most popular from this year. It turns out, WebProNews readers (or viewers rather) really wanted to watch Matt Cutts videos. He appears on the list several times.

Here are the top ten WebProNews videos of the year by views:

Google’s Custom Search turned three in 2009, and it had arguably its biggest year to date. The technology is powering "many tens of millions" of queries a day on millions of sites, according to the company.

As many others are doing, Google is reminiscing about the year that is almost over, and reflecting upon some of its accomplishments. The Custom Search Team specifically is reflecting on some of its highlights for 3009.

You may recall that a lot of entities -including Google, Yahoo, and Bing – released some top/best of/worst of 2009 lists back in late November and early December, seemingly forgetting about the last one-twelfth of the year.  Bing returned today with more data about search trends, however.

Facebook users are a pretty important group of people; after all, in recent months, it’s been established that there are more of them than there are individuals in the United States.  So to wrap up 2009, Facebook’s provided a list that helps spell out what its users have been thinking about all year.

Earlier, we looked at Twitter’s top trending topics of 2009. They broke it down into several top ten lists based on various categories.

Before we get into the meat of the article I have a challenge for you. Say “Top Twitter Trends” 3 times fast. Frustrating isn’t it. Every time I try it I end up saying “Top Twitter Twends” thus giving the Baba WaWa (Barbara Walters for you young kids) sound to it. As you have likely guessed I think I may have too much time on my hands so let’s get back to the real deal.

It’s that time of year when all of the big web properties reflect on the year’s worth of activity. We already saw Twitter’s top trending topics for 2009, for example. YouTube is also sharing its most watched videos and most searched for queries.

Twitter has broken down the top ten trending topics of 2009 for a variety of categories: news events, people, movies, tv shows, sports, and technology, as well as the top ten hashtags used.

It’s that time of year when all of the search engines are releasing their lists of top searches. Dictionary.com may not get the traffic of a Google, or even an Ask, which is owned by the same company, but its list provides a different perspective to the picture of what people are searching for.

Microsoft’s Bing has revealed a top ten list of the most popular trending topics of 2009. To determine these, Bing analyzed billions of search queries and developed the list based on searches made with the Bing search (I mean decision) engine.

As we rapidly approach the end of the second quarter of 2009 there is still news trickling in from what happened in Q1. As suspected, that news is not good. A study by TNS Media Intelligence was reported in today’s WSJ and ad spend for media including TV, print and online display ads fell 14% year to year to $30.8 billion.

Yup, that’s a B as in billion. Just when you think the newspaper industry can’t take another hit it gets hit with a haymaker. According to TechCrunch, the Newspaper Association of America reported a 28.28% year over year in Q1.

The countdown is on. Only a handful of sleeps until 2009 and of course the predictions are flowing thick and fast. The experts are gazing into their crystal balls and sharing their visions for 2009 in terms of search, social, online, mobile and marketing in general.

I’ve pulled together a list of the best predictions I’ve uncovered so far and detailed them below. (if I’ve missed any – share them via our comments, and I’ll add them in).