After writing 44 Social Media Insider columns this year, this 320th contribution to MediaPost offers a good time to reflect on what happened in 2010. Several themes emerged, with mobile social media standing out among all the rest. Here's the year in review.

As we head into the Christmas holiday, it's time for wish lists. Here's a theme-based one for people in social media: If Santa were to give you the gift of a perfect social network, what features would it contain? (And, yes, Virginia, this exercise assumes that Facebook -- for all of its world dominance -- still isn't perfect.)

For nine days, I was silent. The world heard not a tweet, not a Facebook post, not an email from me. This is the story of one man who went to four South American countries with nothing but an iPhone, two digital cameras, a Kindle, and a couple suitcases, and survived without social media in even the darkest of times, like when I really could have used restaurant recommendations.

And the winner is Mark Zuckerberg, in a walk! Of course, I'm talking about the naming of our beloved Facebook founder (after all, without him, many of us would not have found our business calling) as TIME's Person of the Year. And it really was a walk. Zuckerberg was apparently up against Hamid Karzai, Julian Assange, the Chilean Miners and the Tea Party, none of which have had the global impact this year of Zuckerberg, whose invention now has over 500 million members.

Hmmm. The people I hang with on Twitter are so out there. And here I thought I was part of the Twitter mainstream. Last night, I did my own rough survey of what my Twitter-verse (or at least those I follow), looks like -- and it in no way resembles what the well-regarded Pew Internet and American Life Project found when it looked at who in America is using Twitter.

No one ever reads, or comments on, my columns to do with Myspace. But, since hope springs eternal, let me try again. Here's a thought: What if Google bought Myspace?See? Throw Google into the sentence and everything starts to change! I put Google in the mix not just because it's a craven ploy to get you to read this column, but because the idea of it's buying Myspace was actually floated by Gawker, after News Corp. COO Chase Carey 'fessed up at the Reuters Global Media Summit that Myspace was on the block.

Ever wonder what Barbie could teach you about social media? Maybe you haven't, but Barbie got an upgrade lately in the form of a video camera built into her necklace. In her latest incarnation, Barbie Video Girl can give a few clues as to where social media is heading.

I've known for a while that nothing of real business use would take place here at the Social Media Insider on the day before Thanksgiving, but what I didn't know is how I would express it. In fact, if you'd asked me a few days ago, I might've predicted I would go all squishy (in the head!) with this column, listing five maudlin reasons to be thankful for social media: it keeps me in touch with old friends, it's great for fundraising... whatever.

One of the most important decisions Foursquare's leadership has made was revealed last week. It's one of those decisions that could determine if Foursquare becomes a footnote or a phenomenon. The only thing more incredible is that its future now will be determined by how consumers use old-fashioned grocery store loyalty cards.

I spent the morning waiting for Norton to call and do the final fix on a dumb virus -- well, actually, it may be smart because it may still be here! -- that invaded my computer last night. In the meantime, I streamed Mark Zuckerberg's interview with John Battelle and Tim O'Reilly at this week's Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco, which reminded me why so many of us want in on this technology thing, despite its lingering problems. If this virus thing is yin, the vision thing -- as outlined in this interview -- is yang.