GeekWire AwardsIt’s time to cast your vote in one of the most hotly contested categories of this year’s GeekWire Awards: App of the Year.

Competing for your vote are a great mix of newly released apps along with established titles that made significant upgrades and additions over the past year.

The finalists in this category — Glympse, Haiku Deck, Walk Score, Zillow Digs and Dwellable — are all standouts in the Pacific Northwest technology community, exemplifying the rising level of innovation on mobile devices and the web.

Fresh Consulting LogoThis category is sponsored by Fresh Consulting. These finalists were selected by our field of judges after a public nomination period that started last month. You can cast your ballot below.

Last year’s App of the Year winner, Z2’s Battle Nations, set a high bar in the booming field of mobile and social games. So after seeing the finalists below, you might ask, where are the games? Don’t worry, we’ve created an entirely separate category, Game of the Year, and we’ll be posting those finalists for voting in the coming days.

We kicked off voting for the GeekWire Awards earlier this week — see previous categories here — and we’ll continue tabulating the votes in the 14 categories over the next two weeks as we release a category each day. The winners will be revealed at the big GeekWire Awards bash on May 9 at the Experience Music Project in Seattle.

 

dwellablenew123Dwellable: This app and online service for vacation rentals stands out in the growing field of travel apps, with reviews, photos and maps to help people find places to stay. Dwellable was founded by Urbanspoon co-founder Adam Doppelt; former NBA digital executive Brenda Spoonemore; and Snapvine co-founder Nathan Kriege.

The company released a major update in March with a fresh look and “a luxurious feel,” as Doppelt told us at the time. New features include calendar functionality and a focus on search instead of browsing to help users quickly find vacation rentals. Dwellable also announced a partnership with TripAdvisor-owned FlipKey.

glympseGlympse: This location-sharing app is a great tool for letting people know where you are for a limited amount of time. Glympse released a major new update in October, adding new features for easily sharing location among groups of people, not just from person to person. Glympse is available across devices including iOS, Android, Windows Phone and BlackBerry.

The company also expanded its footprint significantly over the past year through partnerships with companies including Garmin, Ford, and BMW.

Haiku DeckHaiku Deck: This app makes it easy to create and share presentations using Apple’s iPad.

Haiku Deck, from a group of Seattle startup mainstays, demonstrates the growing power and unique capabilities of tablets for everyday productivity. Released last fall to strong reviews, the app was spotlighted by Apple and quickly rose up the charts of top-selling iPad apps. Not resting on their laurels, the Haiku Deck team released a significant update in March, including the ability to add charts, graphs and bulleted or numbered lists of up to five items, plus image editing.

walkscoresmalllWalk Score: This app and online service is well-known for its core feature of assigning a “Walk Score” to an address, to provide a quantitative sense for the restaurants, entertainment, services and other amenities within walking distance of a home or office.

It’s a mainstay of the technology scene, but this past year brought a series of significant updates to Walk Score, including crowdsourced pictorial guides and a hotel finding feature, in addition to a new ChoiceMaps feature for advanced analysis of neighborhood walking times and trends.

zillowdigs3Zillow Digs: This app, released by Zillow earlier this year, expands the Seattle company’s online real estate offerings in the world of home improvement — giving home owners an easy-to-use tool to peruse remodeling projects and get estimates on how much they’ll cost.

The Zillow Digs service has a Pinterest-like feel — allowing users to peruse thousands of kitchens, bedrooms and bathrooms. A user can tag their favorite kitchen or bathroom, for example, and in an added twist get an estimate of how much it would cost to follow that remodeling plan for their home.

Those are the finalists! Vote above and get your tickets below for the event on May 9.

The awards — originally started by Seattle entrepreneur Marcelo Calbucci — are in their 5th year now. Past winners have included Tableau Software, PopCap Games, angel investor Andy Sack, Cheezburger CEO Ben Huh, Zillow Chairman Rich Barton and many others.

We’re expecting a sell-out this year, and since early-bird tickets expire later this week, make sure to get your tickets today.

Thanks again to our App of the Year category sponsor: Has Offers.

Previous CategoriesYoung Entrepreneur of the Year … Next Tech Titan.

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