For the first time, the public has a say in the BlackBerry app awards, and South Africans have less than a week to help bolster local app innovation in the annual app competition.
This year sees two homespun apps - PriceCheck and Waytag - competing for first place against 15 top apps from the four corners of the world.
With voting now open to the public, there is an opportunity for consumers to play a part in determining the world's top BlackBerry apps, whittled down from an inclusive pool of 100 000 contenders, until 15 April. Voting closes on Monday, at 5pm ET (11pm SA time).
SA was recently placed firmly on the BlackBerry World map, when the two local applications made it on to the final scoreboard in the smartphone company's BlackBerry Achievement Awards.
The event sees the best BlackBerry apps from across the world going head-to-head for gold in five categories: app of the year, putting customers first, mobile innovation of the year, making the world a better place, and entrepreneur of the year.
PriceCheck has been nominated for app of the year, while Waytag is one of three in the mobile innovation of the year category.
SA nominees
Founded in 2006, PriceCheck (part of the MIH Internet Africa group) is an e-shopping platform that facilitates price comparison across a range of products. The mobile app, now available for free on the BlackBerry 10 platform, enables shoppers to scan product barcodes or search for specific products and receive a list of where - and with what price tag - the product is available.
According to PriceCheck GM Andre de Wet, the Web site provides offers for more than 30 million products for sale in SA, from both online and brick-and-mortar stores.
Geolocation-based app Waytag, a member of the MIP Holdings group of companies, launched in 2009 with a mission to make location-sharing and search less complicated by reducing address systems to one word, dubbed a "!waytag".
A !waytag is a permanent location identifier that moves with the end-user wherever they are. The app launched on the BlackBerry 10 platform as a free download in January.
Richard Firth, CEO of MIP Holdings, says: ""The concept works much like the domain name of most Web sites. It is easy to remember a string of normal characters that you can type into any Web browser and get to the site you want. Behind that simple name lies a far more complex IP address system."
This year's winners will be announced at the BlackBerry Live event, which takes place next month in the US state of Florida.
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