Comments on: And the Webware 100 winners are...

Rafe's rundown of the 100 best Web 2.0 apps there are.

[TaraKelly]

Congratulations to all the winners, from the PassPack team!

It was really exciting to be selected into the same category as Amazon, Yahoo! & friends by the Webware staff. Thanks to all and enjoy the festivities at WebExpo2.0!

- Tara
PassPack Founding Partner

[cflorig]

Finally the wait is over! Last year's list was so great, I just couldn't wait for this year's results. I totally agree with RememberTheMilk...I actually had a reminder today to check on the results. Looking forward to checking out all the winners!

[Familyresource4u]

I use many of these sites and most of them are great. But there are two real disappoints:

Farecast and smugmug, which used regularly are not here!

http://web500.us

[llOUUOS]

I use many of these sites and most of them are great. But there are two real disappoints:

Farecast and smugmug, which used regularly are not here!


http://www.bookmarkth.com

[kevinss]

A great contest, but I would have to agree that it was heavily weighed toward big names for not only recognition factor, but also in the ability of the big groups to self promote on their heavily viewed sites.

That said, I think it was very hard for smaller, unique web 2.0 technologies like our Bubble Guru platform to get viewers to review our service at all.

A standout, perhaps smaller side contest would have been good for Webware viewers to really review and learn about some of the lesser known web 2.0 apps that have emerged this past year, as it's hard to vote accurately, if you don't have all the facts in hand.

That said, still a great contest, and thanks for running it!

[WrnEgaid]

Reviewing the Webware winners reminded me of an old time saying, "Sometimes the good die young". What started out as an event to recognize novel, creative, informative, and useful web sites has ended in a facade. I don?t see 100 web sites, I see one. One great big commercialized blob where ?winners? as you call them, are nothing more than a ranking of businesses who financially support cnet by their advertising dollars. I can recall when cnet focused on the sciences and new technologies. However today, it has become nothing more than a marketing tool.

[Seattle John]

Congratulations to all of the winners. For me, the best part of the contest was that I found a lot of new sites to explore. Keep up the good work.

[alanllevy]

BlogTalkRadio is honored to be chosen as one of the Webware 100 companies. Thanks to the Rafe and the Webware team for coordinating this program.

[Ideaworks]

The Navigator Bar has a glitch and drops through on Hotmail to the site itself. Excellent tool otherwise to give folks an overview of the winners.

Thank you so much. I'll forward the Navigator Bar once the glitch is fixed.

- Bob

[Ron White]

Rafe Needleman?s description of the voting for the Webware 100 Awards unfortunately gives a false impression of the circumstances surrounding the votes Maxthon received in the browser category. Rafe writes:

?Of the ten categories, the most popular in terms of votes cast was Browsing. However it's worth noting that one of the entries in that category, Maxthon, drove an inordinate amount of votes by putting a vote-driving popup in the software itself.?

The problem is that word ?inordinate.? It suggests that Maxthon didn?t deserve all the votes it received. To set the record straight, here are the events that led up to Maxthon garnering more than 400,000 votes, about a fourth of all the votes cast in the Webware contest among all 100 winning products.

When Maxthon was chosen as a finalist for the award, Needleman wrote us, ?Starting on February 25, you can encourage your users and fans to vote for your product ?.? There was no qualification on how we could encourage users to vote; we could have hired the Goodyear blimp or bought advertising time on American Idol. We chose to put links to the voting site on a few of Maxthon?s pages and on a pop-up we sometimes use for such things as news and wishing users a Merry Christmas.

The hitch in the process occurred when David Lenehan, the CEO of PollDaddy, the company tallying the votes, walked into his server room to be greeted by flashing lights and screaming alarms. The Maxthon votes, coming in at a rate as high as 100 votes for ever y .01 seconds, had brought down his servers.

Lenehan, in Ireland, got in touch with Maxthon CEO Jeff Chen in Beijing through Skype chat. After hearing Chen?s explanation of how Maxthon was promoting itself for the contest, Lenehan said, ?There is nothing wrong with what you did. ? There is nothing wrong with your votes.


?Going b y the vote count I don?t think you guys actually need any more votes,? he added.
Chen agreed to the solution Lenehan proposed: taking the contest link off the news pop-up.

?Although we want more users to know, I also don't want to take trouble to your system,? Chen said.

After the pop-up was deactivated, votes for Maxthon continued to pour in. After the contest, Needleman wrote Chen, ? I do owe you a big thanks: 6% of the Maxthon voters also cast votes for other Webware 100 finalists, and we really do appreciate the traffic and the visibility.?

What it comes down to is that Maxthon is a damn good browser, its users reflect that fact with their enthusiastic support, and a vote is a vote is a vote. Anyone who has doubts that Maxthon deserves to be in the Top Ten of all vote getters for the Webware 100 Awards only has to download a copy at http://maxthon.com/download.htm to find out for themselves.





































































Ron White

[kamas808]

Netvibes.com and Firefox should have won.

[llOUUOS]

Finally the wait is over! Last year's list was so great, I just couldn't wait for this year's results. I totally agree with RememberTheMilk...I actually had a reminder today to check on the results. Looking forward to checking out all the winners!





http://www.bookmarkth.com