If you are not familiar with  SEOmoz and their Web 2.0 awards you should check them out.  Jane contacted me a couple of months ago and asked if I would be interested in judging the competition and I signed up right away.  

My reason for wanting to participate can be summed as I generally think there is a lot of poor “web 2.0″ sites out there and this gave me a chance to look at some of the better sites and at some of the best of the best.  Some of these sites I use regularly, but the award judging gave me a chance to look at them with a beginners mind.

Here are my favorites from the list:

	Upcoming I use this all the time to find events.  It is simple to use and the social aspects are tightly integrated. Put your next event there and it will get noticed.
	Mango I started studying Mandarin last year and Mango was a really fun way to begin outside of classroom training.  It integrates the best of the styles of language training that you find on audio with some of the techniques I have seen in classrooms.  Good Stuff.
	Biblio.com The site itself is kind of boring, I won’t lie, but I have a thing for old out of print design books.   This site is a bibliophile’s best friend.
	Urban Spoon I love all things food and this site is one that is in my browser when I am looking for something new or am in a major metro and looking for where the locals eat.
	Twitter I have a love/hate relationship with twitter.  I love that it keeps me connected with so many industry friends and has allowed me to build on relationships that were languishing due to distance.  I hate that the site is so flaky.  I also hate the bots that follow me.
	Colorblender Having worked with creatives for so much of my career, I understand the value in a good color swatch book.  Color blender makes all that possible on the web.

So check out the awards page and I guarantee you will find a site or two that could make your life easier or better.  And a big thanks to Jane Copland and the SEOmoz team for thinking so highly of my opinion.

A little background on the awards (as told by SEOmoz): After scouring the web for Web 2.0 sites both new and old, SEOmoz created their “short list” of sites. The judges are some of the web’s best bloggers, entrepreneurs and business who people vote on winners, narrowing the field to 174 place-getters and Honorable Mentions.

SEOmoz’s Web 2.0 Awards