Readers Choice Awards: Best of 2009

February 9, 2010 | By Scott McClellan | Found in Communication | 0 Comments

It’s hard to believe that 2009 came and went already. 2010 is here. We’re still trying to figure out if we should refer to this year as “twenty-ten” or “two-thousand-ten” because “oh-ten” is incorrect and ridiculous. Anyway, we love to look back each year at the media, apps, and gadgets that served us so well. Even better, we love to ask you, our dear readers, for your favorite resources (and for once we keep our opinions to ourselves). for this year’s awards, we received a record number of votes, and thus we have a great group of winners. Without further adieu, here they are—your favorite things from the year that was.

Best Gadget
Apple iPhone 3GS
www.apple.com
Well, we can’t say we’re surprised. The iPhone 3GS is, by most standards, the best mobile phone ever made. Whether you’re part of the iCult or not, the good news is that Apple raised the mobile phone bar, and as a result, everyone is making better phones these days. Also, look at the other amazing nominees in this category. It seems 2009 was a good year for gadgets and geeks.

Top Nominees:

Amazon Kindle 2
Canon 7D
Flip Ultra HD
Motorola Droid
BlackBerry Storm 2

Best Video/DVD Curriculum
Crazy Love – Francis Chan
www.crazylovebook.com
Speaking of Francis Chan, the DVD companion to his popular book, Crazy Love, is your favorite video curriculum of 2009. The 10-week study features quality visuals, challenging teaching, and questions to spark a small group dialogue. Best of all, you can get the DVD for less than $30, and we know you know a good deal when you see one.

Top Nominees:

Nooma: Corner — Rob Bell
Vintage Jesus — Mark Driscoll
Fearless — Max Lucado
Uprising — Erwin McManus
Convergence — Donald Miller

Best Film
Up
disney.go.com/disneypictures/UP
The year’s top films feature aliens, wizards, more aliens, star-crossed lovers, a football player, and monsters, but a cranky old man and a goofy little tyke won the day. Up’s victory should come as no surprise given the fact that everything Disney’s Pixar creates is excellent, from the story to the char- acters to the voices to the animation. We’ll see how 2010’s live-action movies compare to the upcoming Toy Story 3.

Top Nominees:

District 9
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
Star Trek
500 Days of Summer
The Blind Side
Where the Wild Things Are

Best Church Media Short Film
Plastic Jesus – Igniter Media
www.ignitermedia.com
Our favorite part about “Plastic Jesus” by Igniter Media (a sister company of COLLIDE) is that it features our good friend, Kent McKeaigg. Most of our voters probably don’t know Kent, so we assume they appreciate the message of this short film. As the main character voices his story, text tells us what’s really going on—his faith is non-existent and his savior is plastic.

Top Nominees:

A Life of Worship – (Shift Worship)
Amazing Grace – (Central Christian Church)
Li Yang – (DeiDox)
Lean In – (Floodgate Productions)

Best Church Media Producer
Nooma
www.nooma.com
Nooma is a perennial favorite in this category, and that’s why it’s such a shame that Nooma has come to an end. But
don’t worry, the team behind Nooma is already at work on a new series featuring Francis Chan called Basic. Also, as you can see from our other nominees, there are several other magnificent producers of church media out there.

Top Nominees:

Bluefish TV
Deidox
Floodgate Productions
The Skit Guys
Visual Worshiper

Best Web App
Twitter
www.twitter.com
Let’s get this out of the way first: we’re not going to limit this paragraph to 140 characters. 2009 was a huge year for Twitter in terms of awareness and growth, especially considering the role Twitter played in last summer’s Iran election controversy. In 2010, we expect some of our other nominees, such as Dropbox and Google Wave, to make big gains in popularity, but it’s unlikely anything will match Twitter’s success in 2009.

Top Nominees:

Dropbox
Google Wave
MobileMe
YouVersion
WordPress

Best Twitter Client
TweetDeck
www.tweetdeck.com
One of the reasons people enjoy Twitter so much is that they get to use it on their terms. Specifically, users get to choose a favorite Twitter client with which they can tweet, retweet, and hashtag to their heart’s content, from both computers and mobile phones. Your favorite in 2009 was TweetDeck, an Adobe AIR app that allows users to monitor groups and update their Facebook status.

Top Nominees:

DestroyTwitter
Echofon
Tweetie
Twitteriffic
Ubertwitter

Best Presentation Software
ProPresenter
www.renewedvision.com
There’s no question that Renewed Vision’s ProPresenter is a great presentation solution for Mac-loving churches, and you selected it as your overall favorite presentation software of the year. Each of the big names in this category received a strong showing of support, which means that 2010 should be another competitive year of new versions, new features, and new possibilities.

Top Nominees:

EasyWorship
Keynote
MediaShout
PowerPoint

Best Book
A Million Miles in a Thousand Years — Donald Miller
www.amillionmiles.com
We loved this book. You (probably) loved this book. Donald Miller just has one of those voices—honest, funny, smart, and heartbreaking—that readers enjoy spending time with. In A Million Miles, Miller explains how the principles that make a good story also make a good life, and we haven’t looked at life or art the same way since.

Top Nominees:

The Forgotten God (Francis Chan)
The Principle of the Path (Andy Stanley)
Outliers (Malcolm Gladwell)
Pride and Prejudice and Zombies (Austen and Grahame-Smith)
Why We Love the Church (DeYoung and Cluck)

Best Faith & Pop Culture Blog
Stuff Christians Like
www.stuffchristianslike.net
For the second year in a row, Jon Acuff’s Stuff Christians Like is tops in this category. Clearly, he’s got a good thing going here. Acuff serves up daily slices of wit and insight that make us laugh, think, and grow. With the release of the Stuff Christians Like book just around the corner, 2010 promises to be an even bigger year for Acuff and the SCL community.

Top Nominees:

Best Faith/Arts/Media/Design Blog
PromiseTangemanBlog.com
www.promisetangemanblog.com
The design world is often dominated by dudes, but Promise Tangeman-Wurzell holds her own. Her artwork has been featured several times in the pages of COLLIDE, and an overwhelming number of her supporters voted her blog as the Favorite Faith & Arts Blog of 2009. Keep up with her blog for a steady dose of inspiring design, photography, and Communication creativity.

Top Nominees:

Best Tech Blog
Wired
www.wired.com
Wired produces a phenomenal magazine, but they’re also a repeat winner in this category. In our minds, the competition for Favorite Tech Blog is ridiculously tough—each of the nominees deserves to be a daily destination as you peruse the World Wide Web. Neverthe- less, the accolades go to Wired; they worked hard for this award, and they provide us all with quality news, analysis, and links to the latest and greatest in technology.

Top Nominees:

Best Blogging Platform
WordPress
www.wordpress.org
It’s easy to see why WordPress is your Favorite Blogging Platform of 2009. No other platform can match its combination of price (free), ease of use, flexibility, versatility, and development community. Not only are many of your favorite blogs powered by WordPress, it’s common to stumble across websites for churches, ministries, and small business that are built on WordPress. Platforms like Posterous and Tumblr have their place in this world, but WordPress is the clear-cut king of the mountain.

Top Nominees:

Blogger
Facebook
Posterous
Tumblr
TypePad

Best Sermon Podcast
Rob Bell
www.marshill.org
Rob Bell and the other top nominees for Favorite Sermon Podcast bring different preaching styles and perspectives to the table, but they’re all enormously popular. Bell is widely known for his books, DVDs, and speaking tours, but he also makes the masses happy every week via the Mars Hill Bible Church podcast. And as is the case in all our other categories, it’s hard to go wrong with any of the nominees.

Top Nominees:

Andy Stanley
Francis Chan
John Piper
Mark Driscoll
Matt Chandler

Best Ministry/Theology Blog
Ragamuffin Soul
www.ragamuffinsoul.com
Carlos Whittaker is an uber-blogger; there’s no doubt about it. Every day, thousands of people check in on his thoughts and adventures at Ragamuffin Soul, and hundreds converse in the comments. And although you can’t go wrong with any of the top blogs nominated in this category, Ragamuffin Soul is your favorite of 2009.

Top Nominees:

Best Non-Sermon Podcast
TED Talks
www.ted.com
If you’ve never heard a talk from a TED conference, you’re missing out. The TED website says it best: “Riveting talks by remarkable people.” Essentially, TED features the brightest minds in technology, entertainment, design, business, science, and social science presenting ideas that change how we view the world. Not bad for a free podcast, right? Watch J.J. Abrams, Billy Graham, Bill Gates, and a host of others blow your mind.