Voting in the 2009 <span style="font-weight: bold;">Webware 100 </span>ends on April 30. These products are currently leading their categories. Want to knock them off their pegs? <a href="http://www.cnet.com/html/ww/100/2009/categories.html?tag=mncol">Vote now!</a><br>
Rafe Needleman
Rafe Needleman reviews mobile apps and products for fun, and picks startups apart when he gets bored. He has evaluated thousands of new companies, most of which have since gone out of business.
Each year, we ask Web 2.0 users and Webware.com readers to vote on their favorite Web apps in 10 categories. Voting for this year's Webware 100 closes on Thursday. There are clear leaders in each category at the moment, but that could change in days. Click through to see who's in the lead.
As it did last year, the big-in-China browser Maxthon is leading the voting in its category. The usual suspects (Firefox, Internet Explorer, Chrome, Opera) are doing well. Flock trails the list of the top 10.
The real estate utility ZipReality is pulling away from the pack in the Commerce category. It's even ahead of consumer commerce services such as Amazon and PayPal.
In the communications category, the multi-IM app Digsby leads the pack. This program also alerts users when they have e-mail messages and when their social network contacts have updated their statuses. Note that Digsby pops up a "vote for us in the Webware 100" message when you fire up the app, which likely explains its leading position.
YouSendIt does just one thing: it sends large files outside of the usual e-mail channel. When you need it, you really need it. It's popular and not unreasonably priced.
In the new Webeware 100 category of Location-based services, Google Maps leads by a mile. It's got strong competitors, but this service has not just a good mapping system but deep links into Google's index of all the Web.
The ultimate experiment in narcissism, Justin.TV, has expanded from a one-guy-with-a-livecam curiosity into a whole network of users who broadcast themselves live.
The Web-based application suite, Google Docs, is handily leading the voting in Productivity. It's matured well in the past year; the word processor app now has a spreadsheet and a presentation app to go with it, and all have real-time collaboration features that traditional software apps can't touch.
No surprise at all: One of the only products to become a verb is leading its category. Wikipedia is also performing well in this group. Microsoft and Yahoo search are just barely hanging on.
The Social Network category of the Webware 100 is traditionally dominated by large cliques of voters. In past years, the big teen sites Gaia Online and Stardoll won the most votes. This year, so far, Hi5, which has 63 million monthly users around the world, is leading in the votes. We don't yet know which group goosed this product into first place. Facebook is running fifth.
