The end of the calendar year always generates lists and rankings and reviews that try and make sense of the twelve months past. One set of lists I've really enjoyed this year are the collections of viral videos. I think 2008 will be regarded as a turning point when it comes to a lot of things, including the influence and reach of online videos.

What makes a video viral is its infectiousness, and the degree to which people spontaneously share them with friends and strangers alike. However one key trend I've noticed is the increasing amount of attention and resources that traditional media properties and empires have put into creating and launching viral media. When you look at the top 10 lists a lot of the videos are produced by or even clips from mainstream sources.

There's nothing wrong with this of course, it just demonstrates that online video is ready for prime time. Yet we can't lose sight of the true potential of viral media which is a leveling effect that allows anyone to potentially create a video that gets millions of views. An important thing to watch in the months to come is the degree or extent to which average folk are still able to produce and launch viral videos.

With that in mind, here are my top 5 picks in reverse order:

It's been a really long week for me, and the country as a whole. I've been working really hard, on a ton of exciting projects. So, too, have the political parties in this country. All of them are coming closer than ever to achieving their agenda and creating a new type of government for Canadians.

On the one hand you have the Conservative party, about whose now-successful efforts at consolidating their hold on power I've been writing quite a bit.

On the other hand, you have a newly formed coalition that evokes strong emotion on all sides, and for the first time in a while genuinely threatens the otherwise arrogant Stephen Harper.

Now that parliament has been prorogued, the campaign for power moves into uncharted waters. While we're not in an election (yet), the airwaves are full of political ads, the media is talking about polls, and the internet is alive with the buzz of politics.

To some extent, the government has home field advantage, in that they can still govern, and appear to be hard at work navigating Canadians out of an economic maelstrom.

The coalition parties have their work cut out for them. Their challenge will be to stay in the news while the government bunkers down and hopes Canadians grow tired of the drama.

The key to the coalition's success is unity. But that doesn't mean there can't be dissent. Part of their strength lies in their diversity, and this diversity originates in the cities of Canada.

While I've been using Twitter for some time now, I keep switching up how I use the service, and I still feel I'm not at the desired configuration.

Initially I used it like anyone else, following people I found interesting, as well as anyone who decided to follow me. For the first few weeks this was fine, although I was only following a handful of people, who themselves were only tweeting occasionally.

Problems arose as I followed more people and the volume of tweets started getting higher and higher. Not only could I not keep up with it all, but it seemed that every time I logged in to check what was going on the chatter all seemed like blather and banality.

At my peak I was following and being followed by several hundred people and while I knew there were gems out there, for the most part it all seemed like nonsense to me. While I can be verbose in person, I usually don't have a lot to say online, and so my tweets are rather infrequent.

I realized what I was looking for was a means of reconfiguring my twitter use and constantly tweaking how I interact with the twittersphere.

So the Canadian election is coming to a close and I've been having a lot of conversations with friends and colleagues analyzing what has transpired and how social media has played a role.

We've all been witness to the Obama campaign and their innovative use of social media and the internet. Explicitly what was different about their internet campaign was the way they asked people to give more than money or support but their labour. This labour might be getting them to come into to campaign offices, but it was more likely to solicit their help in doing work online. Whether that be raising funds or reaching out to friends in key swing states.

All the Canadian political parties are using social media platforms like Facebook, and YouTube, and similarly all political parties have elements of social media on their own site. However without exception, their use is primitive, and generally of a symbolic nature, rather than an explicit social nature.

During a number of the talks and workshops I've run around social media, the subject of politicians and their use of the internet often comes up. The discussion tends to focus on how candidates and elected officials use technology to foster a stronger relationship with their constituents and supporters.

Unfortunately a lot of people approach this topic with a lot of baggage and assumptions, associating tools like Twitter or Facebook with procrastination and wasting time. In my consulting work and in my media appearances I often promote the use of social media by politicians, however I make an effort to emphasize the need for authenticity and understanding how to use the tools properly, rather than symbolic appropriation as a token attempt to reach young voters.

Yet I still get feedback from people who say they don't want their elected officials wasting their time on Facebook, although one assumes they do expect these same pols to answer letters that they receive. The reality however is that modest use is what we can all manage, and it is exactly the weak ties that politicians tend to have with their constituents that can be strengthened by use of interactive platforms.