Mashable is proud to announce that voting has begun in the 2nd Annual Open Web Awards, a unique opportunity for the most accomplished websites and services to receive international recognition for their achievements.
During the nominations round, we received over 43,000 verified nominations. We narrowed down this huge pool to the 10 most-nominated sites and services in each category (where 10th place was a draw, we allowed more than 10 nominees in that category).
Please vote for Ignighter to win and pass it along to your friends and family members!
At DEMOgala last week, I had the chance to chat with (and participate in a panel with) Jonathan Abrams, the founder of Friendster and current CEO of Socializr. According to Abrams, Socializr is a new and improved alternative to Evite. On their site they define it as, “a new web service offering free online event invitations, and innovative ways to share event and party information with your friends.”
Like Ignighter to the online dating space, Socializr is attempting to disrupt a stale market that hasn’t adapted in years. One obstacle a disruptive company faces is creating awareness for their new product. Introducing a better alternative into an industry that has forever been dominated by one or two players isn’t easy because it means you have to infiltrate the consciousnesses of your target market.
To create awareness for other social calendar options, Abrams created a site called Evite Alternatives. We liked the idea so much that today we’re lauching eHarmony Alternatives.
While the site is run by the same guys who run your favorite group dating site, our hope is that it will truly provide a relatively democratic service to people looking for alternatives to uninspired conventional dating sites, like eHarmony. If you have sites that you think belong on the list of alternatives, let us know and we’ll add them. Or if you have some content that you want to add, we’re open to doing that too.
