As 2007 comes to a close in just a few short hours, it’s time to celebrate 2008, and to look back on the best of 2007. The following stories brought about the biggest buzz in the blogging community for 2007. As we look forward to 2008, let’s not forget about these stories as we drive forward and continue to strive for success.

10. John Cow

Ahh, the loveable bovine rip off of the evil genius John Chow. Whoa, confusing eh? What started off as an admirable attempt to imitate (albeit humorously) and steal traffic from John Chow has actually turned into a well-rounded and super profitable story. John Cow may even give John Chow a run for his money in 2008, leading us to ask - Will the real John please step forward?

9. Blog Mastermind

Yaro Starak has been a mainstay in the blogging community for some time now. It was only a matter of time before he developed a product to secure his place in blogging history. Well, mission accomplished. It all started with the tremendous viral success of Yaro’s free ebook - “The Blog Profits Blueprint”, which transitioned smoothly into his own teaching ground dubbed as the Blog Mastermind program. For a moderate fee, you can cash in on all of Yaro’s knowledge and start plugging away at internet profits for your own blog.

8. The Birthplace of the Premium Theme Market

Wordpress themes are free right? Yes… and no… Well you can still find free themes but 2007 was ultimately the year of the Premium Theme. It seems that bloggers are no longer content with mediocre free themes that offer little to no features, and even less in the way of being visually appealing. It all started with two of the biggest blogs in the make money online niche - Problogger.Net and JohnChow.Com going the “new” theme route. Custom theme designs made all of us realize that our free theme’s just weren’t up to par any longer. Theme superstars like Adii, Brian Gardner, and newcomer Ben Cope have really made their mark on this hot new marketplace. Just one question… Adii, can I borrow some cash?

7. Blog Sales

This was a hot trend for all of ummm… a month? The market came and went faster than the Miami Dolphins playoff hopes in 2007. If you got in while the market was hot, you got a big payday. If not, then you just missed making some serious cash before this market started to freeze. It all started a week or two after the PageRank updates, and it ended with no less than 3-5 blogs being sold in the 10k range. This blog was actually one of them, but I was lucky enough to buy it back.

6. Wordpress For Dummies

Well it was a long time coming, but Wordpress for Dummies was officially released on November 12, 2007. Authors Lisa Sabin-Wilson and Matt Mullenweg provide an outstanding resource on all that is Wordpress. If you don’t have this book, you must pick it up. Check out the link above to order your copy.

5. Casey Serin - IAmFacingForeclosure.com

2007 also saw the rise (and fall) of Casey Serin. Casey started off with a bang by getting some huge exposure when he was dubbed “The World’s Most Hated Blogger” in a widely read story by MSN. For those of you that don’t know the entire Casey Serin saga, you can check out a summary here. Casey may have been “The World’s Most Hated Blogger”, but he sure was huge for a few months. During the height of the Serin saga, Casey was getting 10k+ pageviews a day, and over 200 comments (mostly negative), and making 5k or so a month from his popular blog - iamfacingforeclosure.com. The saga was brought to an abrupt end when Casey sold IAFF and gave up blogging in an attempt to repair a damaged relationship with his wife which was caused by the personal details that Casey shared on IAFF. He hasn’t been heard from since.

4. The Rise & Fall Of - “The Next Big Thing”

2007 also saw an explosion in products that were supposed to be the next big thing, but fell far short of expectations. This hall of shame list includes Agloco, TNX, and Blog Rush along with many others that didn’t receive the press of these three. It was a good push for Agloco, TNX, and Blog Rush - but that’s over now. Welcome to mediocrity.

3. Perez Hilton

The true success story of 2007 goes to Perez Hilton, from PerezHilton.Com. This super-blogger blogged his way to d-list celebrity status this year. He now makes regular appearances on Vh1 and Mtv, as well as running his super popular celebrity gossip blog. In a recent study, PerezHilton.Com was the number one blog in the world amongst college aged students. Not bad for someone who could easily be compared to your 13-year-old sister. With his crush on High School Musical star - Zack Efron, and his endless array of tropical fruit colored hair, it’s easy to make the comparison.

2. The Four Hour Work Week - Tim Ferris

Although this one technically has nothing to do with blogging, it’s writer - Tim Ferris, runs a very successful blog, so I thought I’d include it. You’d be hard-pressed to find a book that got more buzz in 2007 than The Four Hour Work Week. Having read the book cover to cover no less than 3 times myself… It’s a must-have! Tim discusses how to join the ranks of the “new rich” and jet set around the world living it up on far less money than you may think. It also has some fantastic business plans to get you started on your quest to make thousands of dollars a month online. Get your copy by clicking the link above.

1. Google

Not a single topic in the blogging world caused more of a stir than Google this year. Whether it be their reported Pimp Slapping of several sites with a drop in PageRank, the punishment of John Chow, or the long overdue PageRank update, Google definitely made their share of blogging news in 2007. After punishing John Chow for black-hat SEO and marketing techniques, you couldn’t (can’t) even find Mr. Chow on the first few pages of Google when you search for his own name. It’s pretty surprising since his domain name is JohnChow.Com. Well, after this Google also made a stir by dropping the PageRank of several blogs, including - Problogger (albeit temporary), JohnChow.Com, Entrepreneurs-Journey.Com, and AndyBeard.Eu. If this wasn’t enough to make them newsworthy, the thing that got everyone talking was the delay in the PageRank updates. We waited for months until Google finally started the process, albeit quite late. PageRank updates normally happen every three months. Will the next one be tardy as well? We’ll see.

These stories generated the most buzz in the blogging world in 2007. What will you remember about this year in blogging? If you enjoyed this post please share the love by linking to it and/or clicking the “thumbs up” (I like it) button on your StumbleUpon toolbar so that others may enjoy it.

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