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It's that time again: The 100 Best Products of 2007 is live on our site. The story, edited by Senior Editor and veteran PCW-award-spearheader Eric Dahl includes product of the year (which is, technically, a service--Google Apps Premier), plus 99 other items we like. With everything from workhorse office hardware to games, there's certainly something for everyone.
Back in 1983, our report on the awards consisted of a magazine article with a grand total of one photograph. The Web gives us lots of elbow room and new ways to talk about our picks--so this year's edition has three slide shows (check 'em out here , here, and here) and a video.
Besides spotlighting products we PC World editors chose as winners, we also feature some that are favorites with the PCW community. Which, actually, isn't a new idea at all--in their early years, these awards were based entirely on reader voting.
So how come we're giving out our annual awards in late May? Well, we used to dole 'em out at a party at PC Expo, a June trade showwhich no longer exists. Which meant we published the winners in our July issue, which came out at the start of June. (Hey, we still do--one of our features in the July issue, which subscribers will get soon, is on the awards.) The story's up on the site in late May simply because we don't need to print and mail hundreds of thousands of magazines to put it online.
In other words, we name the 100 Best Products of the Year in May for reasons that are both arcane and archaic. I guess we could move 'em to December or January, but we sort of like doing them when we do.
And so does the world, it seems--they've turned into one of the most popular articles we publish all year.
