Each year there are a ton of videos made by, for and about Microsoft, and the phenomenon only grew bigger in 2008. In fact, there were so many videos that a Top 10 list seemed appropriate. So here it is, our ranking of the best Microsoft-related videos of the year.

Hope you enjoy the clips. And Merry Christmas from TechFlash.

We've made more than our share of fun of the Bill Gates-Jerry Seinfeld ads, but there's no question that they provided some of the company's more memorable video moments of the year. Here's the second ad in the campaign, which was funny enough to make our list -- just barely.

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This one didn't get a lot of attention at the time, but we found it buried on Microsoft's MSN Video site, and it's a gem. It's a video of actor Rainn Wilson (Dwight from The Office) trying to lead Microsoft's employees to a new world record for paper airplane flying during this year's company meeting at Safeco Field. (Note: The video wasn't embeddable, so the link opens in new window.)

Best line: "This is for real, like a world record! Stand up, losers!"

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Microsoft kicked off the year with a spoof of Bill Gates' last day at the company, with celebrity cameos galore. This was first shown at the Consumer Electronics Show in January. It's a great example of the videos the company creates for industry events and big internal meetings. The question is why this creativity, humor and humility aren't more evident in Microsoft's actual ads.

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One of the biggest stories of the year was Microsoft's unsuccessful bid for Yahoo. Here's a C-SPAN video showing the aftermath -- with Microsoft, Yahoo and Google making their cases to a U.S. House task force looking into Google's ill-fated ad deal with Yahoo. One of the best parts is when U.S. Rep. John Conyers tells Microsoft's top lawyer, Brad Smith, that he "never felt so sorry for poor little old Microsoft." Go to the 27:30 mark to see Smith's response.

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Here's one for us geeks. Microsoft unveiled Windows 7 this fall, putting itself in the awkward position of touting the improvements over Windows Vista even though Vista still has a year left on the market. I shot this Windows Vista vs. Windows 7 drag-race video at the Windows Hardware Engineering Conference in L.A.

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It might not have been as historic as last year's Bill Gates-Steve Jobs joint appearance, but the Gates-Ballmer session at this year's Wall Street Journal All Things D conference was full of good stuff, including Walt Mossberg challenging the Microsoft execs over Windows Vista, and Gates delivering the classic line, "Guys like us avoid monopolies -- avoid them, because we compete." The segment even includes a rare public glimpse of Ballmer as white-board maestro.

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One more for the geeks. Since the beginning of the year, there had been rumors that Microsoft was working on a spherical version of its Surface tabletop computer, and I was finally able to get an early glimpse of the technology during a Microsoft event in July. Here's the video I took at the time.

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This was, without question, the most bizarre moment of the year. Ballmer was speaking to students in Budapest when one of them suddenly stood up and started yelling, before throwing eggs at the Microsoft CEO. From a security perspective, it's unsettling, but Ballmer wasn't hit, and he regained his composure quickly.

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We posted the video spoof of Bill Gates' last day above, but this is what it was like in real life. The internal event marking the occasion turned emotional as Ballmer and Gates spoke to employees in Redmond. Here's video of Ballmer reflecting on Gates' career. Video of Gates' comments isn't available publicly, but I was there and I posted the audio at the time on my old blog.

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Former Apple evangelist Guy Kawasaki's on-stage interview of Ballmer at Microsoft's Mix conference was great, with many memorable moments -- none more so than Ballmer reprising his famously maniacal "Developers, Developers, Developers" chant. Asked by blogger Rafael Rivera to show the Web developers in the audience some love, Ballmer played along, with trademark enthusiasm.

A true classic -- definitely worthy of our No. 1 spot for the year.

Happy Holidays, everybody.