To give you an idea of what we're looking for, last year 37Signals was Best Web LittleCo and Memeorandum & Digg.com were Most Promising. The latter category is designed for companies or services that have burst onto the scene this year, but probably won't reach their potential until next year or in the near future. That has certainly been the case with Digg and (the re-named) Techmeme in 2006.
In 2004, R/WW named Ludicorp (the then independent company that created Flickr) as Best Web LittleCo, and Feedburner as Most Promising.
For Best Web LittleCo this year, already someone has suggested Meebo. I'd love to get more suggestions from the community on this - so please leave a comment. Try and think of startups or small companies that have had a particular impact this year - and why.
We've already gotten a great idea of who you think is best Bigco of 2006, via our poll earlier this week. The poll is still open, but as of now the results are overwhelmingly in favor of one company: Google. 55% of you think Google has been the most impressive BigCo this year. Followed by Apple on 15% and Amazon on 14%. Yahoo (last year's winner) and Microsoft have only 7% and 5% respectively! The big question when deciding the R/WW winner is the balance between bigco innovation and the impact it has on a mass market.
So what are your thoughts, especially on Best Web LittleCo for 2006 and most Promising Web Company/Innovator? Also let us know if you'd like us to do a category-by-category breakdown of the year's best Web products.
]]>Their contribution to the social networking aspect of blogs has been nothing short of phenomenal - especially given the short time period.
Cheers,
Aidan
One of my picks for this year would be netvibes. it's the best (biggest) representative for a very essential and important trend (widgets).
I'm not sure about Meeboo. What's the big innovation there?
Anyway, my award for best web blog goes to R/WW, for delivering deep and interesting content. Thanks for that!
]]>Everyone can now easily be a charitable VC for a poor country.
All it takes is a Paypal account.
I like where they are going with this. Companies are innovating and coming with new devices on a daily basis. But one problem I have (and sure most people will agree with me!) with all of them is Technical Support (or the lack of it). Zolved tries to solve this using vertical search and social networking. I think its promising bcos of their approach to tech support and overall its importance going forward. Ive tried and it and have been preety satisfied with the service.
]]>Keep the suggestions and nominations coming! :-)
]]>Promising - Dapper
]]>take a look at http://clipmarks.com . Next generation social bookmarking and archiving.
Blessings!
]]>I nominate www.Weblo.com...a social networking site, reseller of internet domains which have been registered already.
If the latter takes off...the impact on Web 2.0 would be massive.......
]]>It's an online calendar. But it goes way beyond that. It's fast. It's so easy to use. It helps me stay in touch with friends (I can see what my buddies are up to, which is cool).
It has this really innovative feature called the "one box." You know how in traditional calendars you have to click on the day, then the time, then type in your appointment, set a reminder, etc, etc. Well, with 30boxes, it's intelligent. There's a big text-box at the top that you just type plain english in to and it figures out the rest. So when I type "Lunch with Mary next Wendesday at 3pm) it automatically creates the entry in the right place at the right time like magic!! :)
The features go on and on. There's a feature called "Web-Top" that acts like a little desktop application. You can have a mini view of your calendar as well as "panels" that you can set up to show various websites or things... That way you can have more of your information in one place.
30boxes is lovely. They're constantly adding new features, doing speed upgrades, keeping users in the loop, and everyone who seems to RUN the site just seem like such cool people.
If you feel you need some organization in your life (and who doesn't?), 30boxes.com might just end up being the best thing that has ever happened to you.
]]>For Best Web LittleCo for 2006, I'm nominating Reevoo:
www.reevoo.com
They're a UK-based consumer review company that *gasp* actually has a viable business model. Retailers put them in touch with people who have made a recent purchase. Reevoo contacts the buyer and asks for a review. If they receive one, they screen it (for obscenity, spam etc) and then show it on their own site and provide it to the retailer's site as an authenticated review from an actual purchaser. And the retailers pay for the service.
It's gone from a couple of guys working from home in 2004 to receiving $5m in funding last week.
And it's all coded in Ruby.
]]>It's changed my life ... and my wife's, and she doesn't really like computers.
]]>Best business web collaboration tool we have found. They offer both live web conferencing and wiki/shared workspaces well integrated together.
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