The 2007 Web2.0 Awards were announced just a couple of days ago, and there are heaps of Web2.0 applications to look at and consider – all conveniently sorted under 41 categories.

If you’re interested to see what sorts of social software is out there, a browse through the list of winners is worth a browse. A few of the categories that caught my eye included:

• Collaborative Writing and Word Processing – not surprisingly, Google Docs came out tops here. But consider the increasing functionality of these applications – perhaps at last we are seeing a viable alternative alternative to our traditional productivity software>
• Communication – some interesting tools here providing the ability to conduct synchronous communications.
• Podcast Services – great to see Pod-o-matic, one of my favourites, on the list – but with several others in this category it is an indication of the increasing popularity of podcasting.
• Hosted Wikis – another of my favourites, WetPaint, heads this category – but some strong contenders right behind it.
• Web Development and Design – I haven’t yet begun to explore any of these sorts of applications, preferring instead to use my old faithful Dreamweaver, but the products in this category have piqued my interest!

Of interest is a Kiwi connection, with Jan Copland being the person who assembled this year’s list!