Call For Open Web Awards Nominations

from the it's-award-time dept

Mon, Dec 3rd 2007 1:34pm — Dennis Yang

The Open Web Awards have been created to recognize the best online communities on the web. In the spirit of collaboration, instead of building a central site to handle nominations and voting, Techdirt and its readers, along with 30 other blog communities, have been invited to be part of the nomination process. It sounded like a fun idea, so we decided to give it a try.

The contest recognizes sites in 13 different categories:

Mainstream and Large Scale Networks
Applications and Widgets
Social News and Social Bookmarking
Social Search
Sports and Fitness
Photo Sharing
Video Sharing
Start Pages
Places and Events
Music
Social Shopping
Mobile
Niche and Miscellaneous Social Networks

If you would like to nominate a site for an award, please do so in the comments with a subject in the form of "NOMINATE: [category name]: [site name]" -- nominations will be compiled the evening of Tuesday, December 4th, after which a few rounds of voting will commence.

Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.

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–The Techdirt Team

Filed Under: awards, openwebawards

40 Comments

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Rich Kulawiec, 3 Dec 2007 @ 1:50pm

NOMINATE:Niche:boingboing.net
It's in the niche marked "essential reading'; I have thousands
of sites bookmarked, but it's on the short list that I check nearly
every day.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
JJ, 3 Dec 2007 @ 1:58pm

NOMINATE: Music: MP3Sparks
Because that's where you can get quality, DRM-free music, for what it should be priced at.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Seiven, 3 Dec 2007 @ 2:19pm

NOMINATE: [Niche and Miscellaneous Social Networks
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Seiven, 3 Dec 2007 @ 2:21pm

NOMINATE: [Niche and Miscellaneous Social Networks
NOMINATE: [Niche and Miscellaneous Social Networks][www.kotaku.com]

doesn't fit in subject line. Gaming and tech community associated with Gawker media and Gizmodo.com
[ link to this | view in thread ]
KillerRoo, 3 Dec 2007 @ 2:31pm

NOMINATE: Niche: Billmonk.com
Billmonk is a great way for roommates & friends to painlessly track debts between them. I've been using it for about 2 years now, with no complaints! Features include SMS adding of debts (for when you're out at happy hour), comments, reminders, etc.

Randomly and equitably assigns pennies, allows you to shuffle debts if everyone is settling up at once.

www.billmonk.com
[ link to this | view in thread ]
FirewallZer0, 3 Dec 2007 @ 2:32pm

NOMINATE: [Niche and Miscellaneous Social Networks
Trust Your Techno Lust!!!
[ link to this | view in thread ]
FirewallZer0, 3 Dec 2007 @ 2:33pm

www.hak5.org
NOMINATE: [Niche and Miscellaneous Social Networks] www.hak5.org
[ link to this | view in thread ]
tahuti, 3 Dec 2007 @ 2:42pm

NOMINATE: Sports and Fitness: www.rosstraining.com
For those who need real conditioning and those who are not fans of fancy gyms.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
The DoLittle, 3 Dec 2007 @ 2:50pm

NOMINATE: Niche and Miscellaneous Social Networks:
http://www.randi.org
http://forums.randi.org

Techdirt posted a story from Randi about him calling bullshit on an audiophile's $7k audio cable. Thought he should get some recognition. Wasn't sure which catagory his site should fall under, though.

From the site:
The James Randi Educational Foundation is a not-for-profit organization founded in 1996. Its aim is to promote critical thinking by reaching out to the public and media with reliable information about paranormal and supernatural ideas so widespread in our society today.

The Foundation's goals include:

* Creating a new generation of critical thinkers through lively classroom demonstrations and by reaching out to the next generation in the form of scholarships and awards.
* Demonstrating to the public and the media, through educational seminars, the consequences of accepting paranormal and supernatural claims without questioning.
* Supporting and conducting research into paranormal claims through well-designed experiments utilizing "the scientific method" and by publishing the findings in the JREF official newsletter, Swift, and other periodicals. Also providing reliable information on paranormal and pseudoscientific claims by maintaining a comprehensive library of books, videos, journals, and archival resources open to the public.
* Assisting those who are being attacked as a result of their investigations and criticism of people who make paranormal claims, by maintaining a legal defense fund available to assist these individuals.

To raise public awareness of these issues, the Foundation offers a $1,000,000 prize to any person or persons who can demonstrate any psychic, supernatural or paranormal ability of any kind under mutually agreed upon scientific conditions. This prize money is held in a special account which cannot be accessed for any purpose other than the awarding of the prize.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Acts, 3 Dec 2007 @ 2:52pm

NOMINATE: Sports and Fitness: www.sparkpeople.com
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Marcy, 3 Dec 2007 @ 2:55pm

NOMINATE: music: Peel
This is a really cool blog reader and player in one. It collects mp3s from your favorite blogs and puts them in an itunes'esque player and lets you download into itunes. $14.95 fee is worth it.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Petréa Mitchell, 3 Dec 2007 @ 3:01pm

NOMINATE: Mainstream: Usenet
No, it's not a Web site, but all the description says is "online communities".
[ link to this | view in thread ]
darusha, 3 Dec 2007 @ 3:03pm

NOMINATE: Niche: www.zefrank.org
Now invite-only social network for sharing art & creativity in most of its forms.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Udi, 3 Dec 2007 @ 3:05pm

NOMINATE: Social News and Social Bookmarking: feed
http://feedeachother.com

Fantastic feed reader with a social twist.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Lindsay, 3 Dec 2007 @ 3:23pm

NOMINATE: Social Boomarking: FeedEachOther
http://feedeachother.com

feed reader but includes ability to share content with friends and see what other people subscribe too. a great way to find interesting content/sites (in other words, you can waste a lot of time here :)
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Jim, 3 Dec 2007 @ 3:34pm

Online Rants & Raves
This site has thousands of rants and raves organized by city and country. Some really random stuff and some pretty funny stuff.
Rants & Raves
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Sonja, 3 Dec 2007 @ 4:03pm

Deki Wiki http://www.mindtouch.com
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Virtualchoirboy, 3 Dec 2007 @ 4:04pm

NOMINATE: Social News and Social Bookmarking : Far
Behold... the power of Fark!
[ link to this | view in thread ]
NOMINATE: Niche: LambdaMOO, 3 Dec 2007 @ 4:07pm

Petréa Mitchell
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Amanda Wheatcroft, 3 Dec 2007 @ 4:09pm

NOMINATE: Applications & Widgets: MindTouch Deki W
http://wiki.opengarden.org/Deki_Wiki/Release/Hayes

MindTouch Deki Wiki is the most popular vendor backed wiki. It is free open source software (FOSS) and is commonly used for online communities, collaboration, or for building collaborative web applications. It’s built completely on open standards (XHTML, JSON or PHP). It was the first OSI-approved commercially supported open source wiki (released under GPL 2), and is now the only open wiki platform. It has the most complete API that features 99 REST based methods and a web-service extension model that makes it possible to create mashups with many other applications, widgets, and/or data stores such as: third party services like Google Maps, Digg, Flickr, YouTube, MySQL, widgets from WidgetBox, etc.

Deki Wiki is language-agnostic, allowing developers to write code in whatever programming language they choose, and runs on .NET or Mono, making it PLATFORM-independent as well. You can see it here on Microsoft’s Open Source community & partnership page: http://www.microsoft.com/opensource/community.mspx

Deki Wiki has a thriving community of about 2,000 ‘Gardeners’ who have translated Deki Wiki into seven languages, submitted code patches, and created numerous extensions for popular third party applications and services. It is the most popular commercially-supported open wiki in the market by a big margin. MindTouch has an install base over 100,000 and continues to gain momentum. Year-to-year growth has been an astounding 2300%.

You can validate these numbers by consulting the following sources:
• Gartner Report: Magic Quadrant for Team Collaboration and Social Software, 2007
• Sourceforge.Net statistics: http://www.mindtouch.com/blog/2007/10/17/comparative-downloads-on-sourceforgenet
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Chris, 3 Dec 2007 @ 5:10pm

NOMINATE - YourTeam Online
NOMINATE: YourTeam Online (http://www.yourteamonline.ca) - A global sports communication network that connects teams, players, coaches and fans. A monthly SportsWire Live show that is produced from content provided by the users - http://yourteamonline.ca/your team/sw_episode1.jsp
[ link to this | view in thread ]
darwin widjaja, 3 Dec 2007 @ 5:22pm

NOMINATE : Niche and Miscellaneous Social Networks
www.tripntale.com
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Pavel Neuman, 3 Dec 2007 @ 5:39pm

Nominate: Mobile: Wirenode
www.wirenode.com
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Pavel Neuman, 3 Dec 2007 @ 5:42pm

NOMINATE: Applications and Widgets: Flempo
flempo.com
[ link to this | view in thread ]
don, 3 Dec 2007 @ 8:15pm

NOMINATE: TheFunded.com
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Rijn, 3 Dec 2007 @ 8:18pm

NOMINATE: Niche: accursed-lands.com
This MUD has been active for 11 years, is run by volunteers, and allows everyone to create and add content to the game. It's constantly in development, and its custom
web interface allows anyone to add items or post ideas.

It's also terribly addictive. Be warned.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Ryan, 3 Dec 2007 @ 8:43pm

NOMINATE: Music: www.FizzKicks.com
Great music site for bands and fans.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Mythos, 3 Dec 2007 @ 10:07pm

NOMINATE: Start Pages: www.google.com/ig
Highly customizable and in many cases community oriented.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Peter, 4 Dec 2007 @ 3:03am

Nominate: Mobile: justanothermobilemonday.com
Great site that tries to highlight mobile innovation, review latest software, and opinionated contributors, collected from various other mobile sites. News and reviews.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Brent, 4 Dec 2007 @ 4:21am

NOMINATE:Niche:www.chiffandfipple.com
This website started off as a comprehensive guide to the tin whistle. The Forums have blossomed into a rich diverse community. Life long relationships have been built through these forums.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
AJ Barnes, 4 Dec 2007 @ 5:37am

NOMINATE - Niche and Miscellaneous Social Networks
best high school alumni web site www.lqaa.org
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Mike, 4 Dec 2007 @ 5:41am

NOMINATE: Niche and Miscellaneous Social Networks:
CafeMom.com: a social site for moms
[ link to this | view in thread ]
gaullaura, 4 Dec 2007 @ 7:08am

NOMINATE: Niche : www.librarything.com
Social Network connecting people through their books. Completely addiciting.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Brian, 4 Dec 2007 @ 7:13am

Hmmm....
Can you say open invitation for SPAM? Why do so many of the "Nominates" read like ads?
[ link to this | view in thread ]
kp, 4 Dec 2007 @ 9:14am

Please Nominate
NOMINATE www.sportme.de / www.sportme.org for the sports and fitness web award
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Nattiebed, 4 Dec 2007 @ 12:48pm

Nominate: Mobile: MocoSpace
A cool mobile social community for young, hip people looking for new friends - www.mocospace.com
[ link to this | view in thread ]
elroy, 4 Dec 2007 @ 2:41pm

Nominate: Video Sharing: Metacafe
Metacafe's videomaker program is the most lucrative of all of the video sharing sites and it's equal opportunity.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Sean, 5 Dec 2007 @ 9:43am

NOMINATE: Music: LyricWiki.org
LyricWiki.org has lyrics to over 500,000 songs, a thriving community and a completely free and open API which is used by many other projects including Amarok, FoxyTunes, CantoPod, GimmeSomeTune, and literally dozens more.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Wayne, 5 Dec 2007 @ 2:54pm

NOMINATE: Music: gloriousnoise.com
Been around since 2001. Lots of great articles, reviews, links and mp3s.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
turto, 9 Apr 2011 @ 2:59am

turto
TurboFire is a High Intensity Interval Training or "H.I.I.T" dedicated to get people in the best shape of there life in just 12 short weeks.The best way to lose weight is to be active and follow a healthy regime. No crash diet will help you lose weight or maintain it that way. Turbo Fire workout will help you realize it. Turbo Fire sale!
[ link to this | view in thread ]