AllPeers, one of the 30 Webware 100 finalists in the Search & Reference category, is dead.
According to the company blog, the peer-to-peer file transfer service never got the user growth it needed to keep its investors happy. We covered the service a few times and gave it mixed reviews. I always thought it was an important product, but not a great one. It was a Webware 100 winner in 2007 and we made it a Webware 100 finalist again for 2008. However, early returns on AllPeers are not promising for this year: It has less than 1 percent of the vote in its category. (Part of that was our fault: It was somewhat misplaced in the Search group.)
We are removing AllPeers from the 2008 Webware 100, and this leaves us with 29 products in the Search & Reference category. We could leave it at that, but having only 29 products in this category offends my sense of order and symmetry, so I want to add another product to the polls while there's still time for it to make a fair showing in the voting. I could pick a product from our database of nominees, but I think I'll open this up to users instead. So, in the Search & Reference category, which product do you think should be added to the list of finalists? If the product you like is already a finalist (see list), please don't enter it here--vote for it instead.
I'm going to leave this write-in campaign up for just 24 hours--I will close it at 10 a.m. Pacific time on Tuesday, March 4. So if you feel there's a Search product missing from the Webware 100, now's the time to make yourself heard. I want to be clear that this is not the vote. While I will strongly consider the number of nominees a write-in gets, ultimately I will pick what I feel is the most important product to be added to the polls. And once I do that, it will have to earn real votes like all the other finalists.
Update: The poll is closed. Based on the submissions (many of which were not for actual Search & Reference products), I picked Retrevo to replace AllPeers in the Search & Reference category. It will be added to the polling engine shortly.
We have just enabled voting on our new awards program, the Webware 100. This is where you can select your favorite Web products from 250 finalists -- 25 each in these ten categories:
- Browsing: Web browsers, extensions, widgets, and security
- Communications: e-mail, chat, VOIP
- Community: social networks, groups
- Data: search, storage, backup, sharing, and sync
- Entertainment: Games and contests
- Media: audio, video, photo
- Mobile: portable utilities and apps
- Productivity: apps, business tools, commerce
- Publishing: blogging, web content, design tools
- Reference: Mapping, reference works, and education
Where did these 250 finalists come from? On April 15, we asked for nominations for the Webware 100, and we received over 5,000. We whittled that list down to 2,000 de-duplicated and qualifying entries, and from there, selected 250 as finalists. And now we're handing the awards back to the community. Picking the winning 100 products -- 10 in each category -- is up to you.
You can only vote once per category, so choose wisely. Voting closes at 9:00 AM Pacific time on June 11, and we'll announce the winners on June 18.
Now, go vote!
(If you want to support the finalists beyond just voting, go to the resources page to grab "vote for me" graphics and links.)
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