2006 CFeMmys - And The Winners Are...
I'm very happy to announce the winners of the first annual CFeMmy Awards. I have to say, the response to this has been overwhelming. Overall I am pretty happy with how the whole process turned out. I know there were a few folks who felt that it could have been run a little smoother, but for the most part I think that an impromptu idea that I had a few weeks ago may have brought about a new tradition in the online ColdFusion community. All 256 (wow!) votes are in and have been calculated, so without further adieu, the winners of the 2006 CFeMmys are:
2006 ColdFusion Blog Of The Year
In my opinion, the most prestigious award. Day in and day out we can count on massive amounts of ColdFusion knowledge being dropped on us by this man. A glance at his project page reveals 15 sites and open source applications that he has built and continues to support (though I know there are more than that out there)- including the blogware that most of us are rolling. The winner in an absolute landslide:
Raymond Camden (Did he ever mention that he has a wishlist?)
2006 ColdFusion Post Of The Year
In one of the most closely contended races, this post was made in the midst of a string of 'wishlist' type posts from many CFers back in July. Some great insight and debate has occured in the 58 comments posted thus far. The winner is:
Brian Kotek - Adobe Should Stop Trying To Make CF Like Java (No wishlist found)
2006 ColdFusion Open Source Project Of The Year
Another clear cut winner, this time it goes to the IDE (and the folks who work tirelessly to enhance and maintain it) that many of us use day in and day out.
CFEclipse (They have a donate button, but it don't work)
2006 ColdFusion/Flex Open Source Project Of The Year
What started out as an answer to a Friday Puzzler and a good way to learn Flex has turned into a tool that I personally use very often in my daily development. Rumor is that some enhancements are planned for 1Q 2007 (when the project owner gets his tax return and buys a copy of Flex Builder).
cfcFlexplorer (I think this guy has a wishlist too...)
2006 ColdFusion Forum Of The Year
One of the busiest ColdFusion forums, and obviously the favorite. The winner by a very large margin, from the company that owns it all:
Adobe ColdFusion Support Forums
2006 ColdFusion List Of The Year
Hundreds of questions, answers and ideas are posted on this list every day. A true example of a thriving community helping each other out when there is a need. The clear cut winner:
(A quick note - the list/forum categories seem very similar to me, this may be a combination category next year)
2006 Community Site Of The Year
This site was launched on October 18, and with 45 days had accumulated the following mind blowing statistics:
Projects: 100
Total Views: 127030
Total Downloads: 11715
Total Verified Users: 801
The brainchild of Ben Forta, primarly developed by Ray Camden, with support from Brian Rinaldi (yeah, the guy that runs the kick ass CF Open Source List - sorry, no wish list found) and Rob Gonda(again, no wish list found). The winner in another very closely contested race:
(This category was probably the most controversial, and is definitely an opportunity for growth when we get to the 2007 CFeMmys. I think the definition was a bit broad - perhaps it should have been better defined, but I do think the eventual winner was a worthy one IMO.)
2006 Announcement Of The Year
Recent posts have noted this product at the center of Adobe's new 'color wheel' and there are many who believe this product is the greatest thing since sliced bread. The announcement that made CFers happiest this year was:
2006 Publication Of The Year
There has been a lot of talk about this publication this year. Picking up the most recent issue will show the names of some of the brightest minds in the ColdFusion community. With contributors like Charlie Arehart, Hal Helms , Peter J. Farrel, Peter Bell, Sean Corfield, Matt Woodward, Joe Rinehart, Jeffry Houser and many more contributing content, how could it not be a winner?
The Fusion Authority Quarterly Update
2006 ColdFusion Podcast Of The Year
Peter and Matt bring us a rock solid podcast week in and week out. They are constantly in tune with the latest topical information regarding the online CF community. Hands down:
2006 ColdFusion Host Of The Year
A big favorite of the voters:
So there you have it - the 2006 CFeMmy Award winners! As I said before, my sole intent was to recognize the biggest contributors to this online community - those folks whom have taught many of us so much over the years. As you can say, I have tried to link to some of their wishlists if I could find one that existed (If I missed one that exists, please drop it in the comments and I'll update the post). Since I have nothing in terms of material items to give away I encourage those who can to visit a wishlist and give back to those folks who have given time and effort to provide you wonderful support, knowledge, software and web resources.
A big thanks to everyone who has voted. I have had a few criticisms, and I do recognize that there were many more contributors who have had a great impact on the community this year. I promise to follow up with the Honorable Mention awards at a later date (maybe later today if I can find the time). It's been a great year and I'm looking forward to 2007. I promise the 2007 CFeMmys will be bigger and better.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to everyone.
PS - I fully expect an acceptance speech posted to the blogs of all the winners ;)
RSS
Great job for doing this - definitely a fixture I'm looking forward to for next year! Would also love to see table with votes for the categories, but get that it'd probably be a bunch of work in the run up to Xmas - maybe next year!
And of course, congratulations to all of the winners. An extremely deserving bunch who make all of our lives a bunch easier than they would otherwise be :->
Merry Xmas all.
Ryan
Cheers Todd as well for putting this together, I think everyone can say it has been good to not only see the winners and runners up but to also view all of the resources for each category!
Merry Xmas, and Happy New Year! Hope its a good one for everyone!
Disclaimer: Any omissions or errors in the tabulation of the votes is Ray's fault - and a bug in Soundings.... ;)
While the basic ideas of forums and lists are the same, in most cases they are separate. Lyris and House of Fusion have both features while others have either one or the other. The idea of a list is basically email distribution with little worry about archiving and even less worry about allowing people to post from those archives to the list. A forum is basically a web based list of threads where people can post to, with email going out to subscribers but rarely having the ability to accept email responses in.
I'd combine them next year. But then again, I'd either separate the community category into informational sites and community interaction sites. Informational would include RIAForge while community would not. House of Fusion would fit into both but would lose in the informational as it does not have as much or as organized direct information. On the other hand, it would win in the community interaction due to the forums/lists nature. Unless myspace is entered, which kind of blows us away in volume.
On the other hand, removing this category or limiting it to informational sites might remove any feeling of being 'left out'. Every blog, forum and/or list can be a community site which makes the field VERY broad and overlaps many other categories.
Now my goals for the coming year is to start podcasting, blogging more, writing an open source project (I have a few just floating around), do the same in Flex, write something for House of Fusion to make the threads more visible, put out good announcements (Judith giving birth will be good, but we need better), and start hosting (I've actually been asked). Well, all that and any other category that comes up. :)