Our job in Search is to be the starting point for our users to find what they need – and sometimes even the things they didn’t know they needed. To help celebrate all of the cool, useful and quirky things we’re discovering across the pond, Yahoo! Europe hosts an annual “Yahoo! Finds of the Year” awards. It’s where the Europe search team scours the Internet for the most innovative, humorous and useful websites, and with a panel of judges and the greater public, vote on our favourites.

The awards originated in the UK and this year we decided to go European: Yahoo! Germany, Italy and Spain have all launched their own version of “Finds of the Year” – Yahoo! Entdeckungen 2007, Le Rivelazioni del Web and Web Revelación – representing the region’s rich and entertaining Web endeavours.

The UK winners include a social networking site with a twist – a site for dogs and their pooch personalities. Users raved about an eco-shopping site created by a chap named Nigel, full of innovative and wonderful environmentally friendly products. My particular favourite is the staple-free stapler. And the people’s choice winner was Move Me, a site that captures a to-do list for when you move house and adds it all into a neat calendar for a step-by-step guide to a stress-free move!

Germany’s first ‘Finds’ awards, "Yahoo! Entdeckungen," had great examples of Web 2.0 in action, including a cool new approach to exploring the German capital and sites that capture the essence of ‘friends of the web.' The online-community hausgemacht.tv was a double-winner: it was a favourite for both the jury in the category “Zeitgeist” and the public vote. hausgemacht.tv delivers convenient DIY videos, ranging from tips on housekeeping to cars and health.

In Italy, if you want math as your friend and not your enemy or are keen to discover and share your passion of shoes with other like-minded souls then Yahoo! Italia’s “Le Rivelazioni del Web” is the place to go.

And with "Web Revelación," Yahoo! Espana chimes in with revelations ranging from a website reminding you of those little things that your friends and family borrow and never give back, to a karaoke platform to an operating system developed by two young Spanish engineers.

The awards across UK, Germany, Italy and Spain really capture the ingenuity, creativity and fun that are out there on the Web for all to discover. So sidle up to our Search bar and go find something cool today!

Jeff Revoy
VP, EU Search, Local and Social Media
London, UK