Jerusalem start-up voted best 'Social Media Gadget' of 2009

Jerusalem start-up voted

By SHARON WROBEL
wisestamp 248.88 (photo credit: )
wisestamp 248.88
(photo credit: )
Jerusalem-based WiseStamp, an e-mail signature startup has come in first in the category of best Social Media Gadget of 2009 in Mashable's Open Web Awards contest. Mashable, a social media blog reviewing Web sites and services worldwide, has since 2007 been annually holding an international contest to review the latest trends and technologies in the field of social media on the web. Among past winners are famous and successful services such as Facebook, Pandora, iGoogle, Google Maps, Digg, Flickr, YouTube, Twitter, ShareThis and Evernote. This year about 70,000 nominees competed in 50 categories with a total of over 780,000 votes from users worldwide. These numbers reflect the increasing importance of the online social media market. The categories range from best Facebook application, best online magazine, best online newspaper to best social media gadget of 2009. WiseStamp won in the latter category competing against popular and well known services such as Addthis, Sharethis and Digsby. WiseStamp lets its users transform their email signature into a tool for self-expression and self-promotion. The signatures contain updated content, allowing the users to share their latest twitter or Facebook statuses, news and posts from favorite blogs and their social profiles. The WiseStamp add-on, launched less than a year ago, has been downloaded over 300,000 times and is featured as a recommended add-on in the Mozilla Firefox gallery. The start-up, which was founded in Jerusalem, is funded by its four partners, Josh (Tzvika) Avnery, Orly Izhaki, Sasha Gimelshtein and Tom Piamenta, and is in the process of raising a seed round of funding.