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A Boeing 787 takes off from Boeing Field for a test flight with Mount Rainier visible in the background. (Photo by Mike Siegel / The Seattle Times)

BIZ QUIZ | 2011 separated the winners from the losers of the Great Recession. The bigs — Microsoft, Amazon.com, Starbucks — got bigger; a few more small community banks disappeared. Boeing delivered its long-delayed 787 Dreamliner and 747-8 cargo jet and sealed the tanker deal with the Pentagon. So take this test and see if you’re a winner. Good luck!

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0 comments | More in 2011 | A look back, Business/Technology | Topics: quiz

Readers' picks for top local stories of 2011

Georgia LaBelle, left, looks over wine with her husband, Keith, at a Costco store in Seattle, which soon could offer liquor. (Photo by Elaine Thompson / AP)

We asked readers to rank their top local stories of 2011. The results are in, and here are the top vote getters:

1. Voters OK private liquor sales

2. Alaskan Way Viaduct demolition

3. State budget woes

4. First Boeing 787 delivery

5 (tie). Tolling on 520 bridge, and Route 99 tunnel approval

7. Seattle police investigated for civil rights abuses

8. Local economy’s slow recovery

9. Higher education funding cuts

10. Amanda Knox returns to Seattle

0 comments | More in 2011 | A look back

Videos of the year: Editors' picks

In 2011, Seattle Times photographers and videographers captured the screaming of the Blue Angels and first flights of the Boeing Dreamliner, slipped underwater to see salmon swim in the Elwha River and traveled far and wide to create videos for seattletimes.com. If you missed any of these videos or would like to view them once more, here are some of our favorites from 2011.

1. Removing the dams, restoring a river. As a part of a special report on the removal of the Elwha River Dams, photographer Steve Ringman hiked with scientists and dived into streams in order to document the hard work of scientific field work. In doing so, he gathered amazing video of fish swimming by and the environment that will be forever changed by the dam removals.

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0 comments | More in 2011 | A look back, Video | Topics: Blue Angels, Elwha River, Mount Rainier

Royalty tops list of 10 most-viewed photo galleries of the year

On their last public engagement before their April 29 wedding, Prince William and Kate Middleton visited Witton County Park in Darwen, England on April, 11, 2011. (Alastair Grant / AP)

World events dominated the list of most-viewed photo galleries on seattletimes.com in 2011. And even though Amanda Knox is from West Seattle, the story made headlines around the world.

Top 10 seattletimes.com photo galleries, based on page views:

1. The royal wedding
From the story:
History in the making: Kate, William are wed

2. Japan disaster
From the story:
Japan fears meltdown at crippled nuclear reactors

3. Photos from Rodney Alcala’s storage locker
From the story:
Could photos from Seattle storage locker provide clues in serial killings?

4. Osama Bin-Laden killed
From the story:
Bin Laden killed in Pakistan

5. Amanda Knox acquitted
From the story:
Amanda Knox acquitted of murder

6. Amanda Knox returns home to Seattle
From the story:
Amanda Knox: home at last

7. 8.9 earthquake in Japan triggers tsunami
From the story:
32 killed in major tsunami after 8.9 Japan quake

8. Golden Globe Awards | The red carpet
From the story:
‘The Social Network’ and ‘Glee’ are big winners at Golden Globes

9. The new Boeing 747-8
From the story:
The new 747-8 jumbo jet: Up close and inside

10. Devastating tornado hits Joplin, Mo.
From the story:
Missouri officials fear dozens dead in tornado

0 comments | More in 2011 | A look back | Topics: Amanda Knox, most-viewed, photo galleries

Top search terms of 2011 on seattletimes.com

Here are the top 10 news terms searched for by seattletimes.com readers this year. They mostly reflect the largest news stories of the year, except possibly for the omission of “Japan earthquake” and “tsunami.”

1. Amanda Knox

2. Marijuana

3. 787

4. Mastro

5. Viaduct

6. Darren Berg

7. Immigration

8. Occupy

9. I-1183

10. Amazon

Here’s a word cloud showing the relative popularity of our top internal search terms:

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0 comments | More in 2011 | A look back | Topics: 787, Amanda Knox, comments

Politics: The topic that drew the most comments in 2011

Demonstrators listen to comments from Rev. Jesse Jackson in the rotunda of the Wisconsin State Capitol building in Madison, Wis., on March 10. (Photo by John Hart / AP)

The legions of regular commenters on seattletimes.com sure found plenty to argue about in 2011, thanks many times to politicians.

Here’s the Top-10 list:

(By the way, you’ll notice there’s often a difference between the headline on the comment thread and the one on the story. That’s because the comments-thread headline keeps the first headline on the story when it’s posted, while the story shows the revised headline after more information is added to the story over time.)

1. Wis. GOP bypasses Dems, cuts collective bargaining (1,439 comments)

2. Debt-ceiling outcome as unclear as ever (1,409)

3. White House releases Obama birth certificate (1,304)

4. Gregoire proposes half-cent sales tax increase (1,216)

5. Congressional officials say congresswoman shot (1,208)

6. Judge rules to release names of Ref. 71 petition signers (1,159)

7. US stock futures tumble after S&P downgrade of US (1.119)

8. Game thread, Mariners vs. Yankees, May 28 (1,074)

9. Longshoremen storm Longview port, hold guards hostage (1,003)

10. Protest swells at Westlake Park on Saturday (984)

0 comments | More in 2011 | A look back | Topics: comments, GOP, Gregoire

Top 10 most-read seattletimes.com stories of 2011

Mitch Davie, center right, makes a one-handed catch of a flying bat off the swing of Atlanta Braves second baseman Dan Uggla during a spring-training baseball game against the Toronto Blue Jays on March 4, 2011. A blog post about this photo came in at no. 3 of most-read stories of the year. (Photo by David Goldman / AP)

So what were the stories you, the readers, viewed more than any others in 2011? Prepare to be surprised.

Sometimes the top 10 most-read stories are not what you might expect. The number of times a story is viewed is affected by a variety of things and is often unpredictable.

For example, when other websites link out to our stories on seattletimes.com, viewership skyrockets.

At other times, Google searches bring in readers far from Mount Rainier’s shadow.

Sometimes the smallest stories, only one paragraph, will garner huge readership. (See the No. 1 story on the list.) And we’re not sure why …

Stories that are popular on the website might not get much attention in the newspaper. In fact, it’s not unusual for a story to appear online and not appear in the paper at all. Different audiences, different news appetites?

Stories that stood up for the little guy or shed light on an issue that needed to be brought out of the dark drew your attention, as did pieces about people with remarkable stories that needed or wanted to be told.

Before we get to the Top 10, here are some stories that missed the cut, but fetched high readership:

• Why straight-A’s may not get you into UW this year,
• Family faces $2,500 water bill for a leak not even on their property
• Danny Westneat’s column on a perfectly legal $800 tow.
• And you can’t leave out Amanda Knox’s overturned murder conviction

And now, here are the top 10 most-read stories:

1. Woman dies in fall at high school reunion at a Shelton casino (July 31, 2011)
2. Seattle murder conviction tossed out over ‘racist’ comments (June 9, 2011)
3. Sign him up! Fan catches bat, saves beer (March 6, 2011)
4. OK for suspect to view child porn in Tacoma jail (July 13, 2011)
5. 40 kittens later, ‘Harry Potter’ movie franchise calls it a wrap (July 9, 2011)
6. Educating Gabriel, 13, an off-the-charts prodigy (Oct. 8, 2011)
7. Wis. Democrats say AWOL lawmakers will return (March 9, 2011)
8. 12 wounded as gunfire erupts at Kent car show (July 23, 2011)
9. 96-year-old woman confesses to 1946 murder (June 8, 2011)
10. Together 74 years, Kirkland couple die less than a day apart (Aug. 7, 2011)

0 comments | More in 2011 | A look back | Topics: news stories

Rank the top Seattle stories of 2011

We’d like your help in choosing the top local stories of the year. You can contribute to our ranking by weighing random pairs of topics and deciding which was more important (or memorable, or interesting — use your own criteria). If there’s a story you think we missed, use the “Add your own idea” button to submit it. Check back next week for the final results.

0 comments | More in 2011 | A look back | Topics: news stories, Seattle