Q. Who¹s Eligible?
A. Each year, the editors of Internet World invite the members of the Internet Community, vendors and the public at large, to nominate the products and services they feel are most worthy.

Q. How are nominations submitted?
A. An HTML form for submitting nominations can be found at http://events.internet.com/nominate.html

Q. When do nominations close?
A. Nominations will be accepted until 11:00 PM on December 31, 1998.

Q. What are the award categories?
A. Awards are given in the following categories:

Desktop Hardware And Software
On the hardware side this includes devices used to establish and maintain an individual connection to the Internet, digital cameras, and other hardware designed for individual use. On the software side, the category includes programs that are used by an individual while connected to the Internet or an intranet to accomplish a specific task, such as e-mail clients, browsers, multimedia players, and scheduling tools.

E-Commerce Application
An application or system that conducts business over the Internet and includes a transaction. Examples include online stores, purchasing/ordering systems, payment systems, incentive marketing, and distribution services.

Infrastructure Hardware
Devices used to manage a broad number of connections to the Internet or an Intranet. Examples include routers, switches, VPN servers, multifunction servers, traffic-shaping devices.

Internet Services
Services used to enable a specific Internet or intranet function (beyond basic connectivity), such as e-mail forwarding, Web site hosting, wireless access, or transaction processing; Internet-based communications services like fax, telephony, or VPN connectivity; other value-added Internet services, like access to knowledge bases.

Server Software
Programs used to manage or control more than one Internet connection to accomplish a specific application. Examples include servers that manage HTTP connections, streaming multimedia, network security, and network performance.

Web Application Development Software
Programs used to build, deploy, or manage interactive applications for Internet or intranet use. Examples of application development software are application servers, database middleware, and Java and other programming tools.

Web Site Software
Programs used to build, enhance, or manage a Web site. Examples include HTML authoring, multimedia and graphics editing, site management, interactive data management, traffic analysis, data acquisition, and graphics acquisition.

Workgroup Software
Programs designed to foster group collaboration and communication or share information within the organization. Examples include corporate human resources applications, knowledge management systems, report generators, host-to-Web and similar data-access tools, and Web publishing systems.

Q. What are the criteria for winning?
A. The judges will place priority on a product's ability to work with existing standards and the degree to which it contributes to the development of future Internet products and services.

Q. How are winners selected?
A. Following the close of nominations, the editors of Internet World will discuss the nominees in depth, and arrive at a determination by consensus.