With the New Year upon us, our thoughts turn to bubbles and the year that was.

To many observers, 2007 was a cork-popper on par with the last tech bubble, which had its influential and enduring byproducts – Google, foremost among them – and many more flashes that quickly faded. Kozmo.com ring a bell?

So, what of 2007 will have a lasting impact and what will drift quietly into obscurity?

We asked a panel of technology party guests to review a list of events, trends and products that made the scene in 2007 and rate them on a scale of “forget about it” (1) to “game-changer” (5).

On to the results:

Apple iPhone

Apple iPhone

It generated mondo hype and they’re still talking about it.

Score: 4.3

Comments: Believe it. For all its failings – ActiveWords proprietor Buzz Bruggeman listed the lack of search, sync with Exchange and a short battery life – the iPhone had the highest score in our survey, as much for its own success as how it will change the game for competitors. “I think other Smartphone manufacturers are going to have to improve the quality of their handsets in a hurry, or offer customers steep discounts in order to stay in the game,” wrote NPD analyst Chris Swenson.

Nintendo's Wii video game console

Wii

It came out late last year, but the rush was on early this year for Nintendo’s hit video game console to fill the void caused by holiday shortage.

Score: 3.9

Comments: “Interesting because it runs counter to the direction that Sony and Microsoft were going – a great interactive controller, versus high-end graphics. But not game-changing,” wrote Ed Lazowska, a computer-science professor at the University of Washington. It would have been, Swenson wrote, if Nintendo had made enough product.

The spread of RFID chips

Though the technology isn’t new, radio frequency identification chips are becoming widespread in government and financial cards, including passports, driver’s licenses and credit cards.

Score: 3.8

Comments: Privacy concerns still swirl around this one. When they’ve been tackled, “you’ll see this take off,” wrote Swenson.

Virtualization

One of the hottest public-stock offerings this year was VMWare, underscoring the impact that virtualization – software that creates virtual versions of an operating system on a single computer – is starting to have.

Score: 3.7

Comments: Directions on Microsoft analyst Matt Rosoff: “Not sexy, but perhaps the most important trend in IT today.” Lazowska: “It’s been around since the 1960s (IBM has continuously shipped it on mainframes since that time).” Swenson: “I’ve read numerous stories about IT managers getting rid of dozens of servers and running all of those apps in separate virtual environments on a single box. This is the nightmare scenario for server companies come to life.”

Clean tech

Biodiesel and other companies that focused on energy issues grabbed much of the venture dollars.

Score: 3.5

Comments: People seem to see the need for this and want it to be big, but acknowledge it’s not quite ripe. “Clean tech will be huge, but it won’t be biodiesel as the dominant solution,” wrote Susannah Malarkey, executive director of the Technology Alliance.

Android

Turns out Google wasn’t working on a mobile phone, but a whole wireless development platform centered on an open-source operating system.

Score: 3.3

Comments: It’s the openness of the platform more than the platform itself that got people’s attention. “The debate over 700 MHz (spectrum) has forced operators to declare their new found love for being open,” wrote Chetan Sharma, a wireless consultant and author.

DRM-free music

All the haggling over rights and downloading of music have led to offerings without the copy-protection technology known as digital-rights management. One form that emerged is pay-what-you-want.

Score: 3.3

Comments: “The music pirates are still going at it,” Swenson wrote.

Speech recognition

Bill Gates has talked about it for years, but this may be a breakout year, with TellMe, Nuance, Google, VoiceBox and many others offering products.

Score: 3.2

Comments: “There has been steady improvement over the last decade, and this steady improvement will continue, as will the occasional frustrations. Give me brain implants,” Lazowska wrote.

T-Mobile HotSpot@Home

Will this service alter the cell phone company’s business model? With it, you can make mobile calls on the wireless cell phone network or on Wi-Fi, which saves money.

Score: 3.0

Comments: The company says it’s drumming up new business: 45 percent of HotSpot@ Home customers are new to T-Mobile. “As a disruptive technology, it will be better felt as the carrier gets more handsets into the lineup, making the choice of HotSpot@Home easier,” wrote William Ho, research director at Current Analysis.

Halo 3

‘Halo 3’

The video game broke entertainment-sales records and claimed millions of hours that people could have spent on other pursuits.

Score: 2.9

Comments: It would have been an even bigger success if Microsoft could have kept Bungie from leaving the company.

Windows Vista

It actually came to market in November 2006 but it reached the masses early this year. Lots of criticism. Lots of glitches. Lots of sales.

Score: 2.7

Comments: Vista haters can hate, “but eventually it (or one of its successors) will be on most of the personal computers sold,” wrote Rosoff. Swenson agreed: “We’re on track to ship more than 100 million more PCs in 2007 than were shipped in 2001 during the (Windows) XP launch. : It’s hard to have a ‘bad’ release.”