Long-time readers of the Industry Standard may remember The Standard 100, an index of 100 stocks that was designed to be the bellwether of the Internet economy when it was launched in 2000. The index didn't last -- it was started not long after the first Internet bubble burst, and many publicly listed dot-coms were headed for oblivion.
The new TIS 100 isn't an index. It's an awards program (full name: The Industry Standard Innovation 100 Awards) that recently wrapped up after a months-long nomination and voting process. It was an ambitious effort spearheaded by Eric Hill, the Standard's director of product and design. The aim of the program: To identify the 100 most innovative services in the Internet economy across 10 categories. From that group, 10 finalists were selected.
In the past, I've participated in award programs as a judge, but what made this awards program special was it leveraged the collective wisdom and experience of our readers -- as opposed to editors or experts -- to find, nominate, and vote upon the best websites and 'Net technology products in the marketplace.
The results were impressive. The nominations were divided into ten categories, and the voting narrowed the list down to ten winners. A few names on the list will come as no surprise. Hulu topped the audio/video category, and in commerce, the popular personal finance site mint.com took the award. Both have been huge successes, and have been covered in the Standard in recent months (see Mint vs. Quicken, and the importance of a good UI).
Other categories had winners which were practically unknown to the staff of the Standard, but nevertheless had loyal user followings -- and impressive feature sets. "I’d have to say TripIt was the most kick-ass, and I hadn’t heard of it before," said Hill, referring to the winner of the productivity category. You can see all of the winners, as well as runners-up and other nominees, by browsing the categories on the winners' page.
It goes without saying that the TIS 100 award program would not have been possible without the contributions of the Industry Standard community members. They spotted hundreds of sites and services, and cast many thousands of votes overall, helping to select the best of the best. The program was a great success, and we're already planning for the second annual TIS 100 next year. In the meantime, the Standard community continues to participate in our growing prediction market, helping identify and predict important trends and technologies. We have big plans for the prediction market in 2009, so be sure to stay tuned, and stay involved.
Ian Lamont
Managing Editor
The Industry Standard
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