In January, we said All Black Daniel Carter would be hot in 2007, and David Beckham would be not. That just shows how much we new.

What we do know for sure now is what we covered in the interim. So here, officially they are. The Media Watch awards of 2007. Hot? Without a shadow of a doubt.

Mainstream media company of the Year: Al Jazeera

Nigel Parsons' photo courtesy of Global Brand Forum

In August, Yeoh Siew Hoon caught up with the network that even a "stray" bomb from George W Bush couldn't shake. However, as You couldn’t have asked for a more innocuous name. “Al” means “The” and Jazeera means “Peninsula” in Arabic, as Nigel Parsons, managing director of Al Jazeera International, explained, its rise was almost accidental.

“The Emir of Qatar missed it and picked it up. At its launch, it was difficult to get widespread coverage. Then a technician in Paris made the mistake of beaming hardcore pornography across the Middle East disguised as children’s programming. We got that slot.”

Best Pop Culture Mystery Solved Award: Sweet Caroline
In November, Neil Diamond finally told the world about the inspiration behind the immortal Sweet Caroline - Caroline Schlossberg, President John F Kennedy's daughter. As a "young, broke songwriter", he spotted a photograph of the president's daughter in a magazine. "It was such an innocent, wonderful picture, I immediately felt there was a song in there."

Years later, holed up in a hotel in Memphis, he would write the words and music in less an hour. "It was a No 1 record and probably is the biggest, most important song of my career," he said.

The Feral Beast Survivor Award: Tony Blair

By bowing out on top, and surviving the modern day blitzkreig that is the modern British media, Tony Blair eared the forum to have a few pot shots of his own in June, days before he retired. He did not disappoint: "Scandal or controversy beats ordinary reporting hands down. News is rarely news unless it generates heat as much as or more than light."

"It used to be thought - and I include myself in this - that help was on the horizon. New forms of communication would provide new outlets to by-pass the increasingly shrill tenor of the traditional media. In fact, the new forms can be even more pernicious, less balanced, more intent on the latest conspiracy theory multiplied by five."

The new bogey of Travel Brands Award: Social Media
The 2007 Social Media for Brands Report polled 698 UK adults aged 18-35 between 20 June 2007 and 22 June 2007, commissioned by Tamar and conducted online by YouGov. It revealed 80 per cent of people who use social networks have either chatted about, commented on or reviewed a brand or product on an online forum or social network.

Negative comments posted on online forums and social networks put off customers, with more than half (52 per cent) admitting to this. Most at risk? Travel products and services were identified as the sector most at risk from negative comments on social networks, with almost six out of ten (58 percent) saying negative comments would lead to them abandoning a purchase.

The Green Terror Award: Carbon offsetting killing Travel
In May, chief executive and co-founder of Responsibletravel.com Justin Francis called for more balance in the carbon offsetting debate, saying stopping flying was not the solution.

"Reading the papers you would think that air travel is the single biggest cause of global warming. In fact air travel accounts for less than 5% of carbon dioxide emissions."

"The trouble is that it’s sexier to write about planes than lagging your loft. To get results fast every person and every industry needs to focus on the big wins, and we all need accurate information about where these opportunities lie rather than just more sexy copy about planes." Yet he warned, aviation as usual was not the answer either.

"The simple fact is that aviation is the fastest growing cause of global warming. The amount of carbon dioxide emitted by air travel doubled between 1990 and 2004. That is totally incompatible with the need to reduce carbon emissions by 60% by 2050. I believe we’ve been the first travel agent in the world to say that we must fly significantly less."

The Making Dead Words Fly Award: The Obituaries

In August, Yeoh Siew Hoon praised the art of the obituary.

"There’s an art to obituary writing and I feel what is written about someone in death speaks more volumes about them than what is written when they are alive. For some reason, we human beings feel more comfortable expressing stuff after someone can no longer hear us than when they are still near and dear to us."

"What is clear is, big or little or rich, we all pass on to that big hotel in the sky. Not all, though, get obituaries written about us."

The New Media Crystal Ball Gazer Award: CGC, social networking; and video online
In March, Mark Newton, Vice-President, Digital Marketing, of Qais Consulting gave his prediction for the next big influencers on New Media advertising.

"Advertisers will quickly need to get up to speed on Cnsumer Ganerated Content (CCG) and social networking, and figure out how these impact their brands. Both of these can have huge a impact on word-of-mouth, with potentially massive implications.

The use of video on the Internet will revolutionise the way we absorb the medium, and will have a knock-on effect for the broadcast media. As the cost of digital video production continues to fall, advertisers will launch their traditional TV commercials online, test them, and determine the most effective message to put forward to their target consumers.

"News agencies and publishers will also see greater efficiencies in distributing their content online. And consumers will be more comfortable consuming all of this online, as and when they want it."

The Times Like These Rock Star Award: Dave Grohl
In September, Luke Clark wrote of a chance encounter with a rock star hero of his, Dave Grohl of the Foo Fighters.

"Grohl looked a little like French rugby giant Chagal might after a night staying up eating pizza. Yet there was something liberatingly non-airbrushed about him. Still grunge after all these years."

"The Foo Fighters have maintained their uncompromising normalness, their passion for living a life that appears mostly to be pretty similar to ours, and their determination not to dwell on things, but instead pick it all up, face forwards - and rock on."