Vote in the 2009 Webware 100!
Make your voice heard: Cast your votes for the best Web 2.0 apps and services.
Webware 100 voting is now open
I'm happy to announce that we have opened the voting for the 2009 Webware 100 awards. This is our annual program in which CNET readers select the top Web 2.0 apps and services from our hand-picked list of 300 finalists.
This year--the third year we've done the Webware 100--we had about 5,000 qualifying submissions from which we selected the final 300. These are 300 very strong Web apps, spread into 10 groups of 30 each. We have a new arrangement of voting categories this year, including the important Location-based Services category for apps that provide local info, as well as mapping products. We also combined two 2008 categories, Publishing and Community, into a new category, Social and Publishing, recognizing that today, writing is a two-way activity. Publishing is, by nature, social. See all the categories.
There will ultimately be 110 Webware 100 winners this year. There's a special category that's not open to user voting: The Editors' Awards. I created this category because the popular vote isn't always enough to recognize some of the most important small or up-and-coming services. There will be 10 winners in this category, chosen by me and other Webware editors, in categories including design, most innovative business model, and so on.
All the winners will be announced on May 19.
I think it's worth noting that despite the pall of the economy, which has spelled the end of many interesting Web-based businesses, nearly all of the 2008 Webware 100 winners are still up and running. Only three (so far) have been terminated: Yahoo shut Briefcase; MotionDSP withdrew FixMyMovie and will release the function as downloadable software; and iWantSandy shut down when the app's developer took a job at Twitter. As far as I can tell, everything else is still in business.
Finally, a vote of thanks to the Webware 100 technology providers: I use Wufoo to run the nominations process. They make a great system for building online forms. Polldaddy (acquired by Automattic in 2008) supplies the voting technology for the Webware 100. Last year their system processed nearly 2 million votes without a hiccup.