In a year that saw the federal election, a hung parliament and the WikiLeaks embassy cable scandal, what was the biggest Crikey story of the year? It was a little blog post by Crikey aviation writer Ben Sandilands, discussing the near-disaster of a Qantas A380 with 466 people on board. It was a scoop that got picked up internationally, with even the NY Times linking out to the Plane Talking blog.

But what was Crikey’s second most popular story? Why, it’s a Crikey Video of the Day, an elegant single-take Johnnie Walker ad which became quite a popular email forward in recent months.

And in the coveted No.3 spot? A little media wrap titled “Has Australia really banned small br-asts?“.

Sometimes we hate the internet.

Luckily the rest of the top 15 restores a bit of our faith in journalism.

  1. The Anatomy of the Airbus A380 QF32 near disaster by Ben Sandilands, on his blog Plane Talking
  2. Video of the Day: Walking with Johnnie
  3. Has Australia really banned small br-asts? by Ruth Brown
  4. Oz day spoiler: ABC leaks Hottest 100 victor
  5. When it comes to Assange r-pe case, the Swedes are making it up as they go along by barrister James D. Catlin, who has acted for Julian Assange previously
  6. Daniel Assange: I never thought WikiLeaks would succeed by Crikey intern Nick Johns-Wickberg
  7. D Day plus 2 by William Bowe on his Poll Bludger blog.
  8. Minority Report by William Bowe on his Poll Bludger blog.
  9. Over half your news is spin — a joint investigation by Crikey and the Australian Centre for Independent Journalism to examine the role of PR in journalism.
  10. Funding illegal Israeli settlements? Priceless. by Bernard Keane

Based on these statistics, expect a lot more “S-xy Kevin Rudd bares br-asts at WikiLeaks” headlines in Crikey.

The Crikey website also aggregates content, linking out to what we think is the most interesting, revealing and fascinating content from around the interwebs. Here’s our 10 most popular outside links for the year, and if covers the lots from the rise of the Tea Party in the US, Kevin Rudd’s spill and ye olde English drunkards. If you haven’t already checked them out, they are worth the click through.

  1. Hitchens: Hanging at Glenn Beck’s white pity Tea Party
  2. My life as an unqualified, untrained government insider
  3. Guardian: Don’t like David Cameron? It could be worse: meet Tony Abbott
  4. The most ludicrous album covers in history
  5. Former Rudd adviser: The real reason Kevin didn’t attend John Button’s funeral
  6. Uhlmann: How the ABC broke the story that broke Rudd
  7. Why I returned my iPad
  8. Marieke Hardy: Dammit Rudd, we f*cked it up
  9. PHOTO GALLERY: Drunkards of Edwardian England
  10. The Google blacklist

Our most popular website topics this year:

Federal Election 2010
Kevin Rudd
Tony Abbott
Julia Gillard
Photo galleries

The busiest day on our website by a mile — and the busiest day on the Crikey website ever — was, of course, the day that Kevin Rudd got knifed and Julia Gillard was declared our first female PM, June 24. The election saw a spike, particularly on the Monday after when we tried to get our heads around a hung parliament, and when the independents finally announced who they would be supporting.

Other notable days include the day Crikey leaked the winner of Triple J’s Hottest 100, ruining Australia Day barbecues across the nation, and when the “Has Australia really banned small br-asts?” article hit sites such as Reddit in the US.

And to the 28,000 people who found us by googling “Crickey”, we salute you.