Another year older and wiser? silicon.com turns six

Another 12 months have been and gone and silicon.com is one year older, wiser and further away from the dot-com crash - and though such sentiments can sound tired or clichéd, we really couldn't have done it without you, our readers.

When we celebrated our fifth birthday there was still an air of caution about our celebrations. Like everybody, we were affected by the dot-com bubble bursting - but as we turn six we see a greater confidence and tangible sense of optimism around the market which we are delighted to be a part of.

We've recorded a number of victories over the past year. One of the most noticeable was a successful redesign which brought with it the return of reader comment functionality. For us, this had been long overdue and put us back in touch with the issues which bring you back to silicon.com. Reader comments really came into their own when we caught many of you out with our April Fool story this year.

We introduced several new pieces of content, such as the CIO Jury, which has proven to be a massive hit. We've brought together some of the most influential IT execs in the business and asked them to regularly provide snapshot insights into the trends and the technologies shaping our industry. This has proven so popular it's soon to get its own section of the site.

Our annual Agenda Setters special report continues to go from strength to strength and has gained widespread recognition as an important barometer of industry movers and shakers. This year's winner was Apple founder Steve Jobs whose iPod innovation was surely one of the stories of the past 12 months.

Another story which dominated the headlines this year was the offshoring of business operations to India by a number of large UK firms. This was an issue which divided readers but one we realised was critical to our coverage. As such we took the important decision to send senior reporter Andy McCue on a two-week fact-finding mission to the sub-continent to give us an insight into the issue which could only be gained by getting that close to the businesses, the staff and the cities in which they work.

But, while we endeavour to address all the most serious business issues, you just can't help yourselves clicking on some of the more surreal stories we write. Here are our top five best-read stories from the past year - you may notice they don't all have a serious business focus.

1. Web 'copycats' ripping off small businesses
2. Janet Jackson's boob flash tops web searches
3. Hackers tell man he's too fat to eat at Burger King
4. Stealth wallpaper could keep WLANs secure
5. Track your staff using their mobiles

Other popular pieces of content continued to go from strength to strength. From your feedback we can tell the Weekly Round-Up still brightens up your Friday afternoons with its mixture of controversy and irreverent humour. After six years of industry-bashing anonymity we even recently unmasked the Round-Up.

A further embodiment of the shifting mood within the industry was with our inaugural Awards last October where the great and the good were rewarded for their innovation and hard work in helping to turn around the tech sector. The event proved so popular that its staging again this year was never in question.

Thank you to everybody who has made our sixth year one of the most enjoyable and successful yet - so please keep coming back to silicon.com and keep letting us know what you think of our coverage.