It’s Wednesday already, so I might as well play out the theme for the week: Here’s a list of the top 10 stories of 2005 from an information technology perspective, as chosen by IT World.

Okay, now we have a theme going on: Here’s a link to the Top 10 Web 2.0 moments of 2005, as determined by ZDNet.

And here’s a link to Wikipedia’s explanation of Web 2.0, in case you’re wondering (along with everyone else) just what it’s supposed to mean. For my money, it’s a bubble-worthy buzzword to be largely ignored, but it generally indicates a site or application that’s characterized by interactivity and/or user-generated content and/or social networking and/or content syndication.

Here’s a list of the best free downloads of the year, as chosen by Debbie Weil’s WordBiz Report. It’s a pretty narrow selection, unfortunately, but there’s some good stuff in there nonetheless.

The DoubleClick email study says that the average computer user receives 361 emails in a week. I wish.

Fast Company has come out with its list of the best business books of 2005. If you’re like me, you’ll have read one or two, read about three or four others, and will go out and buy one or two after reviewing their selections.

Here’s a news story about Microsoft shutting down a Chinese blogger who was writing about “politically sensitive issues.”

Information wants to be free, and the Internet is the greatest facilitator of spreading information ever created. How long before an Internet version of Tianamen Square happens that blows this sort of censorship wide open?