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Taken as a whole, 2009 was a great year for Twitter. The social media site neared 58 million registered users, each revealing life details in 140 characters or less. But the big gains came in the year's first half, leading some to begin to wonder whether Twitter has reached its peak.

In an odd twist of logic, it's looking like a good year to be in the catastrophe business. The business of insuring against catastrophes, that is. Industry insiders now expect that catastrophe bond activity will pass the $3 billion mark for 2009, which didn't really seem possible just did six...