This week we continue Crikey’s 15th birthday celebration with another commemorative timeline. We are now six years into our history. The year 2006 was a memorable one for the media, the internet and, of course, for Crikey.

In 2006, cyberspace continued to evolve at breakneck speed. Google bought YouTube, and some guy took a photo of his face every day for six years.

It was also the year we passed the 100,000 new-blogs-per-day mark, and so people truly started to believe the internet could realise its fated destiny — as the forum for a new kind of Athenian democracy. Of course, such noble ideas were somewhat diminished by the consuming popularity of using the internet more for the celebration of things like a video of a baby panda sneezing, rather than bold political pursuits.

It was the year the we realised the powerful role personal technology could play in recording world events, as people used mobile-phone cameras to capture the sheer bloodiness and terror at Saddam Hussein’s execution, exposing the ugly side of America’s freedom-loving imperialism.

We wept and then laughed, incredulous, at the Beaconsfield mine collapse and the ensuing media circus as news outlets scrambled to outbid each other for rights to the survivors’ stories.

And, finally, News Corp journalist Glenn Milne took umbrage at Crikey‘s founder Stephen Mayne during the Walkley Awards and decided to, shall we say, manifest that umbrage physically. Llllllllllet’s get ready to rumble!