The 10 Best Digital Innovators Of The Year: 2009 Netexplorateur Awards

This weekend in Paris, Netexplorateur announced its ten top picks for the most influential digital media programs. The winners, chosen by a global committee of pioneers in business and media, will be promoted during the next year in an effort to obtain global understanding of new ways to conduct digital activities and business.

The 10 Netexplorateur winners were chosen from 100 finalists that the Netexplorateur committee reviewed over the past year and include Google's flu surveillance system, the Sekai application for iPhones, and Wizzit, a mobile banking system for "unbanked" customers! Come in and learn what you can!

1. Netexplorateur: Aka Aki, Roman Haensler, Germany

Category: Information & Communication

Called the "extendable umbilical cord," Aka Aki extends global networking to a face-to-face opportunity, by indicating, through your cell phone when you are physically near people in one of your online networks. You can connect through business networks, hobbies, politics... however you set your preferences.

2. Netexplorateur: Auditude, Adam Cahan, USA

Category: Management & Business

This ingenious program enables advertising and media agencies to track their pirated content and turn it into a source of revenue... the theory being that content thieves don't always want to steal; they just don't want to pay a lot to license another company's material, so they steal it.

But the logic of Auditude is that if you approach the theft with a low fee schedule, instead of a threatening letter or law suit, you will discourage theft and turn it into profit. Underlying Auditutde's ultimate objective is the notion that the web culture, like the light bulb, really wants to change its MO.

3. Netexplorateur: Carrotmob, Brent Schulkin, USA

Category: Environment & Sustainable Development

Carrotmob is (or will be) a network of consumers that communicate through various social networks to form a block of purchasers. They "conspire," if you like, to reward through their purchases only the companies that rise above ecological challenges and produce sustainable products.