SEOmoz’s Web 2.0 Awards (2006)

Award Selection Process, Criteria & Judging

It seems clear that Web 2.0 has caught the attention of entrepreneurs and pundits alike, so we set out to see what the meme had to offer: first to collect, then to classify, and finally to calculate the best of the best. We surveyed over 300 sites and sorted them into more than 30 categories. Then, from the biggest categories we selected the top three projects and ranked them based on their usability, usefulness, social aspects, interface & design, and content quality. Finally, the founders of the first place sites, including Dave Sifry of Technorati, Chris Hughes of Facebook, Craig Newmark of Craigslist, and Justin LaFrance of StumbleUpon, shared the background of their projects and gave us their thoughts about the Web 2.0 phenomenon.

In order to be considered “in the running” for the Web 2.0 Awards, sites had to exhibit the basic qualities described in O’Reilly’s original concept of “Web 2.0″ (here’s a compact definition). As such, only true “web as a platform” projects were considered - those that ran entirely off a downloadable client and did not interface with a browser were disqualified. Nevertheless, I am certain that there are hundreds, if not thousands, of projects that are not listed here and may well even be more deserving of awards.

Check out the entire list of winners and runner’s up at the SEOmoz Web 2.0 Awards site.

Below is a short table of the award winners. The ones marked with an * asterisk are sites I’ve either tried or am currently using. I’m so glad to see so many of my favorite sites listed as winners! Congratulations everybody!