A model seen walking the runway during New York Fashion Week in this February 9, 2007 file photo.

New York was on Wednesday named as the world’s top fashion city for the fourth consecutive year, according to a survey by a U.S.-based language use group.

The Global Language Monitor, a non-profit group that tracks words and phrases in the media, on the Internet and throughout the blogosphere, compiles an annual list of the top fashion cities.

New York ousted Paris as the leader in the list four years ago, leaving the French capital jostling with London, Rome, and Milan for the other top positions in the list.

This year, Rome beat out the others for second place with Paris coming in third position, followed by Milan and London. Hong Kong was rated the top fashion city in South Asia, coming in 8th position overall.

Other notable rankings included Shanghai at number 14, Sydney and Melbourne at numbers 12 and 15 respectively, and the fashion quartet of South America — Santiago, Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo, and Buenos Aires.

Krakow, one of the largest and oldest cities in Poland, made it to No. 25, apparently because of its emerging status as a centre of neo-Bohemian influence.

“The ranking is surprising in a number of ways, most of which relate to the changing nature of the global fashion industry,” Millie Payack, a director of the Global Language Monitor, said in a statement.

“Cities that recently would have been considered fashion backwaters are now emerging as significant regional hubs.”

Following is the list of the top 25 fashion cities:

1. New York

2. Rome

3. Paris

4. London

5. Milan

6. Tokyo

7. Los Angeles

8. Hong Kong

9. Las Vegas

10. Singapore

11. Berlin

12. Sydney

13. Barcelona

14. Shanghai

15. Melbourne

16. Moscow

17. Bangkok

18. Mumbai

19. Santiago

20. Rio de Janeiro

21. Sao Paulo

22. Buenos Aires

23. Johannesburg

24. Dubai

25. Krakow

(Agencies)

I. Overview of the Development of Global Digital Camera Market in 2006

(I) Current status

(II) Basic characteristics

1. Technology and industry chain

2. Product trend

3. Application trend

(III) Strategy of major vendors

II. Size and Structure of China’s Digital Camera Market in 2005

(I) Size and growth of the market

(II) Product mix

1. Structure of different imaging components and devices

2. Structure of different pixel levels

3. Structure of different optical zooming

4. Structure of product price segment

(III) Brand structure

1. Brand structure of overall market

2. Region – brand market structure

3. X X -Structure of brand market

(IV) Market structure

1. Structure of regional market

2. Structure of channel market

3. User market structure: demand for first-time purchase vs replacement

(V) Basic characteristic of the market

1. Stages of market development

2. Market concentration

3. XXX

4. XXX

III. Analysis of the Strategy for Leading Vendors in China’s Digital Camera Market in 2005

(I) Analysis of the marketing strategy for leading vendors ( Top5- 10)

1. Vendor A

(1) Development profile and overall commentary

(2) Brand / product positioning

(3) Channel architecture

(4) Analysis of salable/typical models

(5) Commentary and analysis of grand strategic adjustment

2. Vendor B

(II) Analysis of the strategy for growing vendors (2-3)

1. Vendor A

(1) Development profile and overall commentary

(2) Brand and product orientation

(3) Analysis of salable/typical models

(4) Analysis of the cause for fast growth

2. Vendor B

IV. Analysis of the Expected Purchase Behavior in China’s Digital Camera Market in 2006

(I) Brand preference

(II) Price preference

(III) Channel preference

(IV) Channel preference for information acquisition

(V) Demand for innovative functionality

V. Analysis and Forecast of the Trend of China’s Digital Camera, 2007- 2010

(I) Main factors influencing the development of future market

1. Socio-economic development

2. Policy environment

3. Complementary product

4. Competitive product

5. Industry chain and technology

(II) Analysis of the market growth trend

1. Product and technology

2. Market competition structure

3. Channel and terminal

4. Price trend

(III) Forecast for market size

1. Forecast for sales volume

2. Forecast for sales value

(IV) Forecast for market structure

1. Structure of product market

2. Structure of regional market

3. Structure of channel market

VI. CCID’s Recommendations

(I) Product strategy

(II) Pricing strategy

(III) Channel strategy

(IV) Service strategy

(V) Brand strategy

Here are my top ten predictions for Java in 2007…

10. NetBeans IDE Platform will be divided into NetBeans Enterprise Edition, Standard (or Desktop) Edition, and Mobile (or Micro) Edition. NetBeans will continue to gain market share against Eclipse, but Eclipse will maintain a slim market share lead by year’s end.

9. JBoss Seam framework will become nearly as popular as Spring Framework, in terms of market share, adoption, etc.

8. Hibernate has matured, and will likely be “retired” by Red Hat JBoss; but it will remain the de-facto industry standard for Persistence engines until broader frameworks Spring and JBoss Seam persistence offerings take hold. Technology to watch: Apache OpenJPA.

7. Java Web frameworks consolidation: the winners will at least start to emerge in JRuby (Ruby on Rails on JVM), Grails, JSF/Apache MyFaces, and Struts Action Framework 2.0. Technologies to watch: Java Web Parts and maybe RIFE.

6. Java EE 6 alpha code drop will take place at/around JavaOne; and will be offered under GPL license initially in incubator.

5. Sun’s Jini, OpenSolaris, GlassFish, and NetBeans will become official Apache projects, while Java.net will remain the incubator for nascent open source Java projects from Sun.

4. IBM acquires Interface21 and the Spring Framework; will create super enterprise development and deployment framework stack with Spring Framework (w/scripting extensions using Groovy/Grails), Apache Geronimo, and, of course, Eclipse. May lead to a commercial version as well as open source community edition.

3. Sun will acquire the rights to Java.org through acquisition, and use this as their primary portal to all things open source Java, mostly nascent open source Java projects and RSS feeds to their other more mature projects on Apache.org.

2. Oracle merges with/acquires Red Hat (includes JBoss) as the “dance” has already begun with Oracle Linux which is based on Red Hat Linux, past Oracle-JBoss interest and discussions, etc.

And number…

1. HP looking to be relevant again, beyond printers, may acquire/merge with BEA Systems, Inc. which would give them top-down, top-notch complete software solution stack to bundle with their servers. HP currently does NOT have an in-house software stack solution like IBM, Sun, etc. This may also give HP access to a broader and more appropriate customer base…

We’ll see. Enjoy the New Year!