Announcing the 2009 Streaming Media Readers' Choice Finalists

The votes are in—more than 5,000 of them for more than 200 products, companies, and services—for the 2009 Streaming Media Readers' Choice Awards, and after a careful examination and confirmation to avoid any ballot-box stuffing, we've narrowed down the list to three (or sometimes four) finalists in each of our categories. The winner is the top vote-getter in each category, and we'll announce the winners next week.

We first published the category descriptions here, but two of the categories warrant further explanation here. Since this was the first year we included "Best Online Video Startup" categories—one for content, one for technology—we were fairly liberal in our definition of a "startup;" several of the finalists have been around since before the beginning of 2009, but they're all relative newcomers, and each one warrants recognition for the recent advances they've made. Come 2010, we'll limit those categories to companies who actually made their first appearance in the previous 12 months.

And so, without further ado and in alphabetical order, here are the finalists in each of the 22 categories—three finalists in each, except for one category in which there was a tie. You'll have to check back on November 20 to find out the winners—or better yet, come to the Readers' Choice Awards reception at the Streaming Media West/Online Video Platform event on November 18, sponsored by Kaltura, Digital Rapids, and ViewCast.

Best Online Video Startup Company – Content
EffinFunny, Legend of Neil
Invodo, Invodo Product Video Library
Purchase Brothers, Escape from City 17

Best Online Video Startup Company – Technology
Boinx, BoinxTV
Encoding.com
Livestream, Livestream

Best Streaming Innovation
Adobe Dynamic Streaming
Microsoft Smooth Streaming
Wowza Media Server 2 Advanced

Encoding Software (over $1000)
Inlet Technologies Fathom
Rhozet Carbon Coder
Telestream FlipFactory

Encoding Software (under $1000)
Adobe Media Encoder CS4
Microsoft Expression Encoder
Sorenson Squeeze

Enterprise Video Platform
Accordent Technologies Rich Media Communications Suite
Kontiki Delivery Management System
VBrick EtherneTV

Global CDN
Akamai
Highwinds
Level 3
Limelight

Hardware Encoder (HD)
Digital Rapids StreamZ HD
Telestream Pipeline HD Dual
ViewCast Niagara 7500

Hardware Encoder (SD)
Digital Rapids StreamZ/DRC-Stream
VBrick H.264 Appliance
ViewCast Niagara Pro II

Live Video Streaming Platform
Justin.tv
Livestream
Ustream

Online Video Platform (free)
Blip.tv
Vimeo
YouTube

Online Video Platform (Premium)
Brightcove
Kaltura
Sorenson 360

Portable Live Encoding Appliance
Digital Rapids TouchStream
NewTek TriCaster
ViewCast GoStream SURF

Regional (North American) Delivery Network
PowerStream
StreamGuys
Streaming Media Hosting

Reporting and Analytics Solution
Accordent Media Management System
Omniture Site Catalyst
Skytide Insight for Flash Video Players

Search and Indexing Platform
Digitalsmiths VideoSense 2.0
EveryZing MediaCloud
Gotuit VideoMarker Pro

Server Hardware/Software
Adobe Flash Media Server 3.5
Microsoft IIS7 Media Services 3.0
Wowza Media Server Pro

Streaming Music Solution
Last.fm
Live365
Pandora

Transcoding SaaS
Encoding.com
mPOINT
Multicast Media Technologies Multicast Transcoding

Video Advertising Management Platform
Eyeblaster
Tremor Media Acudeo
YuMe ACE

Video Advertising Network
BBE
Tremor Media
YuMe

Webcasting/Presentations Solutions
Accordent Technologies Capture Station
ON24 Webcast Center
Sonic Foundry Mediasite 5.1