Media Guardian- Media Watch Monday 13.12.10 By Sam Walton

AND A HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Here Guardian writers look back at 12 months of highs and lows- and forward to 2011.

DIGITAL:

Look back at 2010:

• The ipad launch was in April and the device sold 7.5 million in the first six months and it inspired thousands of imitators, launching with rather more success than the iphone 4.
• Google faced a threat from privacy campaigners after admitting its Google Street, view cars had been gathering users passwords and emails.
• Viacom's three year battle with YouTube over copyright infringement ended in June with YouTube eneding up as the winners.
• Viacom is appealing.
• The music industry ended up shutting down pirate bay.
• In April, Mp's ensured an outcry when they passed the clumsy Digital Economy Act with harsh penalties for ill-defined copywright infringment.
• The new government commited themselves to a centre for technology excellence. They then caused controversy when it pledged 50million for superfast broadband rollout without addresing BT's infrastructure monopoly.

New for 2011:

• Competition will get fierce between Google, Facebook and Apple.
• Google will be chasing the smartphone and related advertising markets thorugh its Android handsets.
• Apple is more than likely to refresh its ipad and MacBook Pro lines and Facebook will try to drive its vast audience towards one billion users.
• It is already at 633million and boosted by the film Social Network, the world's biggest website is staking out our social interactions as the advertising territory of the future.