Global Directory Award (GDA) Winners: WDN Europe and Apptera!

The Global Directory Award program, introduced in 2006, continued in 2007 to focus on innovation and was expanded. Sixteen entries were received this year—from Responsa, WDN, Deutsche Telekom, eStara, EDA, Market Location, Call Genie, Yellow Pages Group, Midentity, soonR, Apptera, Itesco, mobilePeople, Newsphone, MobileGates and Slovak Telekom—up from nine entries last year. This year's People's Choice award was selected by conference delegates after the entries were posted on our website and after entrants had the opportunity to make a sixty-second "elevator pitch" to conference delegates about their service. We know from the presentations and from the ballots that there were a lot of great entries, but the People's Choice award went to WDN Europe for their ComNote Secure SMS Notification Service, which may significantly expand the mobile directory market by allowing users to reach mobile subscribers whom the users have been unable to reach up to now.

We also introduced a specific Innovation Award intended to recognize innovation in this market. This selection was based on five criteria: service "newness," service uniqueness, value to the service provider, value to the user, and impact that the service is likely to have. While the selection was difficult, Apptera received the award.