I saw Rafe Needleman the other day and we spent some time together at an industry schmooze. Rafe was looking very much like a cat who had just dined on a delectable canary. It's called the Webware 100 contest, which he is running from his blog.
Rafe has picked 100 companies in ten categories as contest finalists and had invited users to vote on which they think is the best. One of them is my client Scrapblog who only has to blow past the likes of Typepad and Wordpress to win in the publishing category.
Rafe is smiling because the end result is that he has 100 of the hottest companies in social media and software tripping over themselves to send traffic to his site so they can vote. They have widgets and buttons prominently displayed on their respective sites, sending you to the webware contest. The ranking of his site is rising like a rocket.
But the catch is that there is no catch. Rafe has done a great job of picking the best and brightest of the current generation of companies out there. He's made it difficult to cheat. I know, because I tried to do it for Scrapblog this morning and could not. Of course, you can help me with my scrappy little client by going over there and voting for them. You can vote several times in the category, but if you only vote for my guys, they of course do better.
I look forward to the overall results next week. It is good for these companies to compete and it is of course great for Webware to host the competition. If I know Rafe, he'll figure out some ways to keep the competition going after the final finalists or selected.
